The Death of Mrs. Westaway Summary
Ruth Ware

The Death of Mrs. Westaway Overview

In Ruth Ware's mystery novel The Death of Mrs. Westaway, the protagonist is a 21-year-old woman named Hal who works as a tarot card reader on the pier at Brighton Beach. When Hal's mother was run over by a car outside of their flat three years before the narrative present, Hal had been forced to change her vision of the future, trading dreams of college for long hours spent trying to pay her own bills. When she gets into trouble with a loan shark in an attempt to keep her flat, she receives a mysterious letter that promises to give her just the financial boost she needs--if she can find the nerve to pull it off. Over the course of Ware's novel, she introduces themes such as secrecy, truth, and the power of intuition.