"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.

Until Joan, who distrusts Elsie, digs into her past and discovers the truth.

Elsie Fitzpatrick is not her real name. Her real name is *Mabel Waller*.

In *1959, at just 15 years old, she became the youngest Australian in history to be convicted of murder.* The press called her *"Mad Mabel."*

Suddenly the quiet lane becomes a media circus. Police reopen the case. Is history repeating itself? Did Mad Mabel kill again?

Elsie decides at 81, after 60+ years of silence, it's time to finally tell her side of the story.

*THEN - 1940s-1959:*

Mabel grows up wealthy at Rosehill, a grand estate, but with cold, unloving parents Elliott and Mary. When her baby sister Kitty dies of polio, her father blames Mabel and she becomes the family scapegoat - "mad."

Her mother later dies by suicide after discovering Elliott's affair. Mabel is sent to live with her Aunt Cecily (Cess) and her partner Ness.