[Review] Mad Mabel - Sally Hepworth

Summary: Meet 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. (Pub Date: Apr 21 2026)

Elsie's elderly neighbor has just been found dead, and she's suspect number 1, if only because she's been the suspect of quite a number of other murders, attempted or consummated. This raises interest in the story of the youngest kid ever to be convicted for murder in the country, and she finally accepts to tell her side of the story.

The story is told in two timelines, the present one as Elsie finds her nonagenarian neighbor and nemesis dead in his kitchen, as well as one in the past, as she tell us and a podcast duo her real story, of how she came to be Mad Mabel. 

3.5 rounded up.

The tone in this book is everything. As I closed it and looked back on Elsie's story, I couldn't help but feel sad. There were just so much misery happening to and around her, if it hadn't been for the tone, this book would have been a BIG sob story. Think of Broken Country or The Correspondent. However, that wouldn't be Elsie. Though I did like those books, I'm glad this wasn't another in that line, because I prefer much much this tone. 

And yet, I expected more. Somehow, this story seems to promise us a big, life-changing plot twist that never came. My guess is that this book should be selling to those who do prefer more of a literary fiction kind of book, where the big mystery isn't as important. However, it ends up more on the thriller side, the promise that something very bad is about to unfold. To make it underwhelming, there probably is a big mystery in the book but it's so easy to spot that what should have been a big reveal it wasn't even useful as confirmation because we had already enough proof of the fact. It wasn't so bad it was disappointing but it didn't add to the book as it could have. Thus, I kept expecting the reveal to be that plus something actually unexpected that never came. Too bad.

It is, nevertheless, a great read. It's fast paced, it's funny, it's involving. You gotta love Elsie.

Honest review based on an ARC provided by Netgalley. Many thanks to the publisher for this opportunity.

Rating: 3 out of 5.