Ruth Ware is Back With THE DEATH OF MRS. WESTAWAY

The Death of Mrs. Westaway is a new psychological mystery by Ruth Ware, author of previous best sellers In a Dark, Dark Wood and The Woman in Cabin Ten.

The main character of the new novel is Harriet Westaway, nicknamed Hal, a young woman who ekes out a living as a Tarot reader on the Brighton Pier. Hal gets a surprising letter naming her as an heir of a deceased grandmother. But Hal immediately realizes it's a mistake, the dead woman was not her grandmother. Yet Hal is in debt and desperate, so she makes a risky decision to try to claim whatever the inheritance is.

She travels to Cornwall to the Westaway family estate of Trepassen. There she meets the brothers Harding, Able, and Ezra, along with the aged and hostile housekeeper Mrs. Warren. Hal must pass herself off as the daughter of a sister, Maud Westaway, who went missing years earlier. Hal's appearance as an unknown heir is a shock to the suspicious family members.

As Hal continues her deception, she learns more and more about Westaway family secrets long buried. But someone doesn't want those secrets exposed and Hal finds she has stepped into a dangerous trap.

The Death of Mrs. Westaway is not Ruth Ware's best work. The novel is a slow-tempo read, with far too much of Hal's swirling interior thoughts clogging the plot. The frenzied climax stains credulity with its questionable motivations of a key character.

THE OUTSIDER by Stephen King a Crime/Horror Crossover

With his new novel, The Outsider, Stephen King has written a hybrid tale that begins in the Crime genre and then crosses over to finish wholly within the Horror genre. It's a dizzying switch for readers to make and the result may not be satisfying for some.

The novel opens with an impossible crime enigma. Flint City kids baseball coach Terry Maitland is arrested for the perverse murder of an eleven year-old boy. Fingerprint and DNA evidence from Maitland is conclusive that he is the killer. Eyewitness statements add confirmation it was him. There's just one problem. Maitland was with a group of fellow teachers at a conference seventy miles away at the same time the boy was murdered. Video camera footage at the conference confirms Maitland's alibi. He couldn't have been the killer. He couldn't be in two places at once. Or could he?

This is the compelling crime puzzle that King sets up. But to provide an answer, the novel has to shift radically into the supernatural realm of things such as doppelgangers and shape-shifters. It's a theme King has explored before in his work, notably in the novel, The Dark Half.

For readers looking for a straight Crime fiction story, The Outsider may be a disappointment with its sudden outright supernatural turn. For fans of the Horror fiction thrillers that Stephen King is best known for, the book may be just what they're looking for.