"Mad Mabel" by Sally Hepworth! OH, MY! I have just joined the "Mad Mabel Club" and a devotee of Sally Hepworth's books. I would have been her friend immediately upon meeting her. Such interesting relationships and reveals kept the pages turning almost fast enough to hear them turn.

This is *Mad Mabel by Sally Hepworth* - New York Times bestselling author of _The Soulmate_ and _Darling Girls_.

It came out *April 21, 2026* in the US / 2025 in Australia, and won *ABIA General Fiction Book of the Year 2026* and *Ned Kelly Award for Best Crime Fiction*.

Here is a summary in English:

*Tagline:* _Sanity is subjective. They called it murder. She called it justice._

*The Two Timelines:*

*NOW - 2025, Melbourne, Australia:*

*Elsie Mabel Fitzpatrick, 81 years old*, lives alone on quiet *Kenny Lane*. She is sharp-tongued, fiercely independent, a curmudgeon who likes her routine and minds everyone else's business.

Her neighbors are Peter, Joan, and Roxanne - a single mom with a very persistent, spunky 7-year-old daughter *Persephone*. Elsie pretends to be annoyed by Persephone who keeps coming over uninvited, but secretly she loves her.

One day, Elsie finds her 93-year-old neighbor *Ishaan Patel* dead on his kitchen floor. At first it looks natural - no foul play suspected.