“The Mother-in-Law” by Sally Hepworth

352 pages, St. Martin’s Press, ISBN-13: 978-1250120922

Another of the books I assigned for the Fraser Public Library’s Mysteries & Munchies book club, The Mother-in-Law by Sally Hepworth was the latest book we tackled. Exquisitely polite and friendly, Lucy’s mother-in-law Diana has nonetheless always kept her at arm’s length; however, when Diana suddenly commits suicide, all and sundry are shocked, especially after reading her note claiming that she did so after her recent cancer diagnosis – a cancer that, according to the autopsy report, doesn’t exist. So Lucy finds herself in the center of a murder investigation involving the mother-in-law she hardly knew (incidentally, The Mother-in-Law is Hepworth’s sixth book and has even been optioned for a TV series by Amy Poehler).

The story shifts in perspective throughout from Lucy (the daughter-in-law) to Diana (the mother-in-law) and from the present to the past, though one is never confused by this jumping back and forth. As is usual with mysteries of this type, this non-linear way of storytelling is crucial to keeping The Big Reveal secret until the end. Throughout the narrative we get to see that what Lucy views as one thing, Diana reasonably views as another; even though Diana lives in a mansion with millions of dollars in her bank account and her children believe she comes from a comfortable middle-class life, that is far from the truth. The skeletons in Diana’s closet go back farther than any of her children can imagine, and they shaped her in ways they simply cannot understand.

While The Mother-in-Law is officially classified as a mystery it so much more than that: it is also a classic story of miscommunication and lies that so many families struggle with in reality, and not just between daughters and mothers-in-law. This book will stay with you because of the undercurrent of sadness, the “what could have been” potential if family members had just opened up to each other. Fair warning: it was rather slow to start and I found bits to be boring, but I must finish any book whose spine I crack and so I powered through. And, brah, was it worth it. I enjoyed this book but in a surprising way, for it was not at all what I thought it would be. It was better, and all the more fulfilling for being so.