REVIEW: Mad Mabel by Sally Hepworth
There are two kinds of people no one ever expects to be murderers: little girls and old ladies. Meet Mad Mabel.
Elsie Mabel Fitzpatrick: eighty-one years old, gloriously grumpy, fiercely independent, and never without a hot cup of tea—or a cutting remark. She minds her own business in her quiet Melbourne suburb, until a neighbor turns up dead and the whispers start flying.
Because Elsie hasn’t always been Elsie. Once upon a headline, she was Mad Mabel Waller — Australia’s youngest convicted murderer. But was she really mad, or just misunderstood? Either way, she’s kept her secret buried for decades.
Enter seven-year-old Persephone, a relentless little chatterbox who has just moved in across the road (armed with stickers, questions, and no sense of personal boundaries); Joan, who appears to have it in for Elsie; and a healthy dose of public interest — the cops are sniffing around, and the media is circling like seagulls at a picnic.
So Mabel does what she’s always done best — she takes matters into her own hands.
Is she a cantankerous old lady with a shady past? A cold-blooded killer with arthritis? Or just someone who’s finally ready to tell her side of the story?
Sharp, surprising, and wickedly funny, this is the unforgettable story of a woman who’s spent a lifetime being underestimated—and is about to prove everyone wrong. Again.
CW/TW – parental abuse, bullying, domestic violence, suicide, child in danger, predatory men, attempted SA, murder, queerphobia
Dear Ms. Hepworth,
So many books today seem to be about senior citizen serial killers. Serial killers who cheerfully admit that “they did it!” Mad Mabel’s blurb promised me something different. An older woman setting the record straight. This is a book I inhaled over a day and a half and is one I will remember.
Mabel Waller grew up knowing that she wasn’t loved. Her beautiful mother seemed to appease her bullying father but Mabel knew that staying out of his way was the smart thing to do. Mabel also had no friends and was used to people calling her “Mad Mabel” though she didn’t know why.
Sixty years later, Mabel – aka Elsie – now lives on a small community street in Melbourne. She keeps to herself because, except for her friend from childhood Daphne, she still has no friends and she likes it that way. If you don’t love, you can’t be hurt. But now her old identity has been dug up and the public and news media are up in her life. When offered the chance to tell her side, she finally decides to come clean.
The CW/TWs are real. And slowly getting the background of Mabel’s story made me heartsick for her. Mabel is smart and quick but has been undermined her whole life. Her parents seem blase at best (mother) and brutish at worst (father). Mabel’s aunt Cecily and Cess’s best friend Vanessa are the only ones who seem to give a damn about Mabel and the truth. Except for Daphne who is always loyal through thick and thin. It seems just when Mabel might catch a break, something happens. Her father, the neighborhood bully, the loss of her mother, the forgotten knowledge of her younger sister — something happens to shatter Mabel’s peace and possible acceptance.
Then after sixty years of laying low, it all comes out and everything gets stirred up again. But after a lifetime of staying silent, Mabel decides that if the media won’t leave her alone (though they actually do fairly quickly), then she’ll choose how and to whom she’s going to spill the beans. The two young (to Mabel) YT podcasters promise her a first look at the finished product before it goes live and then sit down with her as she tells all. I liked Libby and Adeem and darned if they don’t actually stick to their promises.
As the modern day street neighbors get involved in what’s going on, they and Mabel begin to finally really get to know each other. One person who makes herself at home in Mabel’s life is young Persephone, the daughter of a single mother with trouble in her past. Persephone is a piece of work but ultimately in a good way. Through her, Mabel finally feels the stab of pain to the heart that Cess and Ness once told Mabel is how you know you love and are loved.
I wish I could say that all the period things that Mabel went through are in our collective pasts now but, yeah no. Though it might seem overdramatization for modern society to be so interested in Mabel’s long ago history, I remembered that back in the day, her story would have been headline news and would probably have shifted into the national fabric of memory even if only in a vague “Oh yeah, I’ve heard that name before” way. In the end, Mabel tells what really happened and why. And in letting others into her life and her into theirs, she gains the friends and found family she always longed for. I was feeling a slightly higher grade for this except for two things.
Spoiler: Show
~Jayne
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Oh, I will keep an eye out for this book. Thanks for the review.
@LML: My library got 10 copies and they were all quickly snapped up and a waiting list is forming. I’d never tried any of Hepworth’s books before but if anyone has any suggestions I’d be interested to hear them.
Alas, my library has 0 copies. But they do have Mice and Murder by Sally Smith (excellent!) and The Railway Conspiracy by SJ Rozan and John Shen Yen Nee (very good), so this week I’m not grumbling about relocating to a well-funded library system.
@LML: I hadn’t heard of the second book you mentioned but my library has both books in the series. Thanks!