Mad Mabel: A Novel
Crime, Murder, Thrillers & Suspense
What if the woman everyone thinks they know has been hiding the real story all along? In The Mabel Maker, Elsie Mabel Fitzpatrick is an eighty-one-year-old with a sharp tongue, a stubborn spirit, and a secret she has protected for decades. Once known as “Mad Mabel Waller,” Australia’s youngest convicted murderer, she now finds herself pulled into the spotlight when a neighbor’s death brings old questions back to life. With an inquisitive young neighbor, suspicious locals, and unwanted attention closing in, Elsie must decide whether it’s finally time to reveal the truth. A witty and surprising story about identity, resilience, and being underestimated.
- Release Date
- 2025
- Publisher
- Pan Macmillan Australia
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Our Review
About the book
In 1959, fifteen-year-old Mabel Waller became the youngest person in Australia convicted of murder. Decades later, in present-day Melbourne, an elderly man is found dead, and his 81-year-old neighbor Elsie Fitzpatrick is revealed to be the former Mabel. With police and press circling, Elsie decides to tell her own version of events.
Our review
Sally Hepworth hands the microphone to an 81-year-old woman with a notorious past, and she is not about to waste it.
Hepworth has made a specialty of domestic suspense with a wry, humane edge, and Mad Mabel plays to her strengths. The pleasure here is Elsie’s voice: tart, funny, unsentimental and very aware of how the world sees old women. Alternating between her teenage years and the present-day investigation, the novel asks how a sensational label sticks to someone for a lifetime, and whether the story everyone knows is the true one.
The dual-timeline structure is well managed, though the present-day thread is lighter and less absorbing than the past. Readers expecting a breakneck thriller should know this is more character study than puzzle box, and a few revelations are foreshadowed heavily enough to guess. Still, Elsie is a memorable creation, and the book’s sympathy for misjudged women gives it unexpected weight.
What we loved
- A sharp, darkly funny elderly narrator
- Thoughtful about how notoriety shapes a life
- Smooth dual-timeline storytelling
Keep in mind
- Some twists are easy to see coming
- Present-day sections are less compelling than the past
Read it if you like
The Mother-in-Law, The Thursday Murder Club, fans of character-driven domestic suspense
The verdict
A witty, compassionate suspense novel that lives and breathes through its unforgettable, unrepentant narrator.
