The Death of Mrs. Westaway

The Death of Mrs. Westaway is a 2018 mystery novel by the British author Ruth Ware. The story concerns a young woman named Hal Westaway, a poor and lonely tarot card reader who becomes embroiled in a mystery involving an inheritance, her family, and a possible murder. The novel was nominated for several awards. This guide references the 2018 Simon and Schuster eBook edition.

Plot Summary

Harriet “Hal” Westaway lives in a small apartment in the British city of Brighton. Following her mother’s unexpected death, she lives alone. The small tarot card reading business she inherited from her mother is not enough to keep up with her monthly bills. Hal struggles so much that she is in debt to a loan shark who sends a man to her tarot booth, warning her that she has a week to pay back the extortionate interest on her loan. The man threatens her with violence unless the money is repaid. Feeling desperate, Hal reads a letter from a lawyer in Cornwall. The letter informs Hal that she has received an inheritance following the death of Hester Westaway. Hal does not know anyone called Hester Westaway and assumes that the lawyer confused her for someone with a similar name. Hal knows that she could use the cold reading skills she has honed through her tarot work to trick the family into giving her the inheritance, figuring that even a small sum could hugely relieve her precarious debt and rapidly mounting bills. After struggling with the morality of the issue for some time, Hal’s desperation takes over. She books a ticket to Cornwall.

Hal spends all the money she has on a train ticket to Penzance, Cornwall. On the train, she researches the Westaway family and discovers they are far wealthier than she expected. She attends Hester’s funeral and then meets the family. Hester’s three sons are named Harding, Abel, and Ezra. Harding is bullish and focused only on the money. Abel is kind and welcoming. Ezra is distant and mysterious. At the reading of the will, Hal discovers that Hester has left the immense but slightly ramshackle house to her. Harding is outraged, Ezra is bemused, and Hal is so overcome that she faints.

Hal worries about the lies she has told. Pretending to be a member of the Westaway family to receive whatever small inheritance was promised to her, she now finds herself in the middle of a tense standoff between the brothers. She worries that she will never pass any of the strict verification processes and that she may be charged with fraud. Just as she is about to give up, Hal discovers that her mother may have known the three brothers during their childhood. Abel gives her an old picture and points to a woman named Maggie, whom Hal recognizes as her mother. Intrigued by the possibility that she may indeed be related to the Westaways, Hal stays at Trepassen House.

Hal slowly unpicks the mystery of the Westaway family. She discovers that Hester was a cruel, authoritarian figure in the family and that all her children hated her. Hester also had a daughter named Maud who went missing many years ago. Maud and Maggie were cousins and friends; after Maggie became pregnant with Hal while staying at Trepassen House, both disappeared.

Hal realizes that the woman she thought of as her mother was not actually her biological mother. Instead, Maud and Maggie escaped together to Brighton. Maggie vanished in mysterious circumstances and Maud assumed her identity, raising Hal as her own daughter. Hal puzzles over the identity of her father. When reading Maggie’s diary, she discovers that all references to her father’s identity have been removed.

As she digs deeper into the mystery, Hal comes to realize that Ezra is her father. However, she also realizes that he killed Maggie many years before and Maggie’s sudden disappearance forced Maud into hiding with Hal. Hal finds herself alone in Trepassen House with Ezra due to an unexpected snowstorm. She confronts him and he confesses to killing Maggie when she demanded his financial support. He also admits that he killed Maud, explaining that Maud planned to tell Hal the truth. Hester knew the truth, and left the house to Hal so that the chaos stirred by the inheritance would force the family to confront the truth. Ezra chases Hal and threatens to kill her, but then falls into the frozen lake and drowns. Hal escapes, inherits the house, and is welcomed into the Westaway family by her surviving uncles.