Mad Mabel

Author: Sally Hepworth Title: Mad Mabel Publisher: St. Martin's Press Date Published: 04/21/2026

Read Dates: 03/28/2026- 03/29/2026
Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐

 📖 I received a gifted e-book ARC. The following is my honest review✍🏻

Mad Mabel is a dual timeline thriller, told from the POV of Elsie/Mabel, an 81-year-old woman recounting events from her childhood that led to her earning the nickname "Mad Mabel" and being the youngest person in Australian history to be convicted of murder. Now an old woman, she just wants to live a quiet, peaceful life, but the death of one of her neighbors brings her back into the limelight, and she is convinced to finally tell her side of the story for the first time.

This was an enjoyable, fast-paced thriller that I really liked. There were some moments that I didn't know if they were supposed to be plot twists, because they seemed really obvious to me, but I decided to read with the assumption that it was supposed to be clear to the reader, and only a surprise to the characters. I loved the found family aspect of it, loved her interactions with her neighbors as Elsie and with her aunt at Mabel.

There are two kinds of people no one ever expects to be murderers: little girls and old ladies.

Elsie Mabel Fitzpatrick is eighty-one years old. She's lived on her idyllic street for sixty years—longer than anyone else. Aside from being a curmudgeon who minds everyone else's business, few would suspect that Elsie has a past she's worked exceedingly hard at concealing—because when it comes to murder, no one ever suspects little girls or old ladies. And Elsie Mabel Fitzpatrick, once a little girl and now an old lady, has a strange history of people in her life coming to a foul end.