Review: The Woman in the Library

The Woman in the Library by Sulari Gentill
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I received an ARC of this book from NetGalley.

I loved this book! It is the story of four people who are brought together when they happen to be sitting near each other in the Boston Public Library Reading Room when a woman screams and is presumably murdered. The four strike up a friendship and decide that they owe it to the woman who was murdered to try and discover what exactly happened to her. Two of the four are novelists, which definitely adds to the story (while crime writers solving crimes themselves isn't a new trope in the mystery genre, this story does it very well). At the very same time that our four new friends are trying to solve the murder, the reader is reminded through emails that are interspersed throughout the book that this is in fact a manuscript that a writer named Hannah is in the process of writing, and she is receiving feedback, research help, and perhaps overzealous advice from a man named Leo. This also adds another layer of interest and even suspense to the book.
I enjoyed getting to know the four main characters and see how they developed as the reader (and the "narrator" of the story, Freddie) really got to know them. I got definite "Only Murders in the Building" vibes from the story, and I really enjoyed the camaraderie between the characters as their quest to find out what happened to the "woman in the library" grew. The interjections from Leo's emails were also very interesting and different, but a great addition to the book.
I would absolutely recommend this book to anyone who enjoys mysteries. I read it quickly and couldn't wait to see what was going to happen next!

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