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Four strangers are sitting in the reading room of the Boston Public Library when a scream rings out. As security officers investigate, they instruct visitors to stay put. So the two women and two men have time to speculate on the reasons for the scream. When nothing suspicious is found, they’re cleared to leave. But the four decide to spend more time together, heading out to a cafe. And Freddie, the narrator, ominously notes, “I have my first coffee with a killer.”
Later, the news reports that a young woman was found dead in the library. The new friends gather again and discuss who she was and what could have happened.
Freddie and Cain are writers. The latter has penned a bestseller; Freddie is in Boston from Australia for a writing fellowship. Marigold is a psychology student and Whit a law student. The murder and their subsequent fast friendship inspire Freddie to start writing a book based on those elements.
As the mystery plays out, letters from a fan to the author of this story, Hannah Tigone, are interspersed between the chapters. Hannah and Leo Johnson are understood to be corresponding, though we only see the missives from Leo to Hannah. Leo is reading one chapter of this book at a time (the story Freddie is narrating) and giving opinions about it as it progresses. He lives in Boston and is telling Hannah, who lives in Australia, details about Boston that could enhance the story she’s writing. He’s also telling her about his own writing and attempts to get published.
The story early on is meta: an author named Hannah is writing a book about a writer named Freddie, who then starts writing a book based on what readers of The Woman in the Library are reading. It’s unclear for a while why the letters from Leo to Hannah are part of this book, but they become more and more revealing and compelling. And a separate line of mystery/thriller emerges.
This novel is a fairly light murder mystery whose core puzzle is solved tidily at the end. The meta twists then give it an extra layer or two that bump it up from a standard whodunit. It’s slyly presented and quite clever. I got a kick out of watching the pieces of the story be thrown on the waters and then gathered back up at the end. The Woman in the Library makes for amusing reading when you want something a little different from a stock mystery book.
Rated: High. Profanity includes 15 uses of strong language, about 10 instances of moderate profanity, 15 uses of mild language, and around 60 instances of the name of Deity in vain. Sexual content includes some “off-screen” sex as well as a couple of very brief, mild or moderately detailed scenes. Violence includes a murder and several attempted killings/attacks, mostly by stabbing, which aren’t detailed or gory.
