Reviewed by Tim Suddeth
The Mystery Writer by Sulari Gentill (Poisoned Pen Press, 2024)
First Sentence
He awoke early on the day he died, lying unmoving for a time under the weight of frustration, the inertia of despair.
Summary
The Mystery Writer by Sulari Gentill hit the bookshelves in 2024 and quickly claimed readers’ attention. What is it with attorneys quitting their jobs to become writers? As all aspiring writers know, it must be for the fame and money, right? This is a situation where we get this twice.
Theodosia Benton turns up at her brother’s, Gus, house in Kansas one day. She announces that she’d left her job as attorney in Australia to move in with him and finish her novel. Gus, himself a promising, reputable attorney agrees to let her stay for a year and follow her dream.
Theo begins working on her novel at a nearby coffee shop. (Of course.) She meets a successful writer who is known for his books on conspiracy theories, and they have a tryst. When she doesn’t hear from him the next day, she goes to his apartment to confront him, only to find him lying on the floor. She and her brother become the police’s prime suspects. To protect her friends and brother, Theo must make a tough decision.
Analysis
Gentill grabs the reader with a suspenseful story about a sister and brother that is easy to root for. Theo’s struggle to leave law for a much less promising, but more fulfilling, career as an author is well described. And the additional characters she adds to the cast all bring their own unique gifts and backgrounds.
The Mystery Writer deals with several very current issues. It looks at conspiracy theories in America and how it can affect the lives of others, especially those in the public’s eye. It also looks at doomsday preppers and the split it can cause when one of the family wishes to be more of a part of society.
I found The Mystery Writer to be a fun read and look forward to reading more from her. It was fun to learn how Australians look at and feel about Americans and to learn a little about their cultures. Letting their parents be, what Aussies call ferals, was a neat addition.
I do agree with many of her reviewers that the ending seemed to be a little disjointed and dragging, especially after how tight most of the story was. But a large part of that was because she was showing that there was a long gap from the start to the end of the story. Time is a killer to suspense, and cohesion.
Author
Sulari Gentill was born in Sri Lanka and grew up in Brisbane, Australia. She went to college to become an astro physicist. She then became a lawyer practicing as a director on public boards but soon decided she’d rather spend her time writing.
Like Theo, is from Australia and is a lawyer turned author. She has written both mysteries and fantasy and her novel Crossing the Lines won the 2018 Ned Kelly Award for Best Fiction. Her Rowland Sinclair series is about a young artist and gentleman and reluctant sleuth set in 1930s Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. The Mystery Writer is a nominee for the 2025 Simon & Schuster Mary Higgans Clark Award given at the Edgar Awards. (Click here for a list of other nominees.) Gentill Lives her husband and two sons on a small farm in the foothills of the Snowy Mountains of Australia.