Book Musing: The Woman in the Library by Sulari Gentill

 

Our Thematic Book Club chose “Inked” as the theme for November. Nowadays that generally has something to do with tattoos but, after thinking about what type of book I wanted to read this month and looking at the offerings, I used “Inked” to mean written and this one is tied to the Boston Public Library.

I listened to The Woman in the Library by Sulari Gentill, narrated by Katherine Littrell, through our Hoopla app.

The book opens with a letter to a novelist from an adoring fan, named Leo, as a prologue of sorts. It suggests that this fan has been corresponding with her for years. The relationship sounds erudite and friendly. “As for your enquiries about how my own book is coming: Well, I spent Friday at the library. I wrote a thousand words and deleted fifteen hundred.”  A piece of humor any writer could relate to.

Chapter one opens from the perspective of Freddie, a young novelist from Australia living in Boston. She is trying to write in the Boston Public Library and is finding it difficult to focus. She looks around at the people sitting at the same table she is.

One young woman “has divested her jacket to reveal full-sleeve tattoos on both arms. I’ve never been inked myself but I’m fascinated.” (I’d forgotten this character had tattoos, or “ink.”) She’s also reading a psychology text book. Is this a student or a patient? She is dubbed “Freud Girl.”

Across from her is “Heroic Chin” in a Harvard Law sweatshirt. (His name is Whit, she will soon learn.) “Handsome Man” (Cain) is also sitting at the table and she thinks he might just be a writer too.

“And then there is a scream. Ragged and terrified.”

People start murmuring, packing up to leave, but the security guards enter and demand everyone stay where they are until the situation is sorted out. (Very stagey, for my money. Reminds me of the plays I was involved in high school drama club.)

But it is effective as they sit down while a law student starts spouting off about illegal detention. There is some witty banter and the four introduce themselves. Finally the guards release them without having found the source of the scream. The four decide to get coffee together and the narrator reveals that one of the others is a killer, though she did not know it at the time.

This is, we learn, the book being written by Australian author Hannah Tigone, a mystery writer. We find this connection through another letter from Leo Johnson, the beta reader and fan. It turns out Hannah cannot travel to Boston to research her latest novel, because of Covid restrictions. Leo offers lingo at first and fact checking. Hannah also writes him into the story

Each chapter of Hannah’s book is followed by the latest correspondence from Leo, who becomes more and more invested in her novel, as Freddie’s story progresses. Eventually the reader realizes that Leo is, perhaps, a little too invested.

There are TWO mysteries-one for Hannah and one for Freddie. BOTH were engaging and kept this reader guessing. I had two suspects particularly in mind but found myself waffling between all four of the people who met in the reading room. (Yes, even the narrator at times. An unreliable narrator is an interesting story device, after all.) And also the next door neighbor character Hannah names for her pen pal, Leo.

The revelations just kept coming about all the characters. They were well spaced out and well placed in the plot to keep the story moving forward. The details of the Boston setting were highly entertaining.

I thoroughly enjoyed the layers to this story and look forward to more from this author.

Bonus, it turns out this is one of the books chosen by our Friends of the Library group for their Books Sandwiched In talks during the winter. I’m one book ahead already!