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Book Review
Reviewed: 24 April 2024

The Mystery Writer

by: Sulari Gentill

A Novel

  • Rating: full starfull starfull starstar outlinestar outline (3/5)

I saw the summary and the cover and the book instantly went to my Want to Read pile. The book came out and I guess I should have known from how long it took for me to get going reading it that it would not be a top favorite. 

I liked:

  • The structure, with interspersed email “dialogue”
  • Big brother Gus
  • Mysterious Mack - his backstory was pretty interesting and necessary for some of the events that carried through the story
  • Mack’s prepper family - while I may not agree about prepping, they we hugely supportive when Mac, Gus and Theo needed them
  • Jackie, co-worker and girlfriend to Gus - she is smart and probably the most sensible of all of them
  • Mack and Gus’ friendship

What I disliked:

  • Theo, the main character, I had a hard time accepting her naïveté given her backstory and her inability to heed red flags staring her in the face even when she acknowledges they are there
  • The last few chapters had a pace of their own and events that seemed more appropriate for a different genre of book
  • The length of time it took to look into a couple of obvious, in-your-face leads

I would have liked more info on

  • “The Ancients” since they were mentioned so many times
  • Day Delos and Associates Management
  • How Mack got from prepper Cormack to who he is now. We got some of it, like his mother shot him then pulled the bullet out herself when he was 10.

What I thought didn’t quite fit was a recent real world event that was mentioned as a connection for a couple of bad guys. It may have made more sense to me if there had been a bit more backstory on the publishing house. 

The book was a solid 4 until the last third of it. Then with time lapse whiplash and other events, I wondered if I’d somehow skipped to another book. The writer seems to be a good writer (this is my first read of their work), I just didn’t get the shift in the last few chapters.

BTW, I did the audiobook and I thought the narrator did a very good job.

Happy Reading!

Release Date: 1-March-2024
Audiobook, Mystery

Plot Summary

A literary thriller about an aspiring writer who meets and falls in love with her literary idol—only to find him murdered the day after she gave him her manuscript to read. 

There's nothing easier to dismiss than a conspiracy theory—until it turns out to be true

When Theodosia Benton abandons her career path as an attorney and shows up on her brother's doorstep with two suitcases and an unfinished novel, she expects to face a few challenges. Will her brother support her ambition or send her back to finish her degree? What will her parents say when they learn of her decision? Does she even have what it takes to be a successful writer?

What Theo never expects is to be drawn into a hidden literary world in which identity is something that can be lost and remade for the sake of an audience. When her mentor, a highly successful author, is brutally murdered, Theo wants the killer to be found and justice to be served. Then the police begin looking at her brother, Gus, as their prime suspect, and Theo does the unthinkable in order to protect him. But the writer has left a trail, a thread out of the labyrinth in the form of a story. Gus finds that thread and follows it, and in his attempt to save his sister he inadvertently threatens the foundations of the labyrinth itself. To protect the carefully constructed narrative, Theo Benton, and everyone looking for her, will have to die.