β[A] delightful and eccentric new taleβ(The Boston Globe) from the author of the runaway bestseller The Jane Austen Book Club
In Karen Joy Fowlerβs newest novel, the bestselling author of The Jane Austen Book Club once again delivers top-notch storytelling, creating characters both oddball and endearing in a voice that is utterly and memorably her own. Witβs End is a clever, playful novel about finally allowing oneself to grow upβwith a dash of mystery thrown in.
At loose ends and weary from her recent lossesβthe deaths of an inventive if at times irritating father and her beloved brotherβRima Lansill comes to Witβs End, the home of her legendary godmother, bestselling mystery writer Addison Early, to regroupβ¦and in search of answers. For starters, why did Addison name one of her charactersβa murdererβafter Rimaβs father? But Addison is secretive and feisty, so consumed with protecting her famous fictional detective, Maxwell Lane, from the vagaries of the Internet thatβrumor has itβ she has writerβs block. As one woman searches for truth, the other struggles to control the reality of her fiction.
Rima soon becomes enmeshed in Addisonβs household of eccentrics: a formerly alcoholic cook and her irksome son, two quirky dog-walkers, a mysterious stalker, the tiny characters that populate Addisonβs dollhouse crime-scene replicas, and even Maxwell Lane himself. But, wrapped up in a mystery that may or may not be of her own creation, Rima discovers to her surprise that the ultimate solution to this puzzle is the new family she has found at the house called Witβs End.
Playfully exploring the blurred boundaries between reality and virtual reality, fiction and fact, Karen Joy Fowler subverts the whodunit and gives us a thoroughly modern meta-mystery with wit, warmth, and heart.
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