Well, that story started out as intriguing with law school weary dropout Theo going to live with her brother in Lawrence to escape it all and write the novel that had been in her head. Seems pretty reasonable. Theo starts writing at Benders and meets famous author Dan, Things progress normally as they get to know each other, spending more and more time together and both writing novels. A curveball comes right out of the blue after Dan warns her against signing up with the same publisher as him. You have intriguing messages at the beginning of each chapter from conspiracy theorists which is a nice touch in getting into the mood for what happens next. Dan ends up dead and further bodies show up, all connected to Dan and by consequence, Theo. Manuscripts go missing, and the police are clueless about who is killing and so settle on the closest connection, Theo. It gets really wild after that and the last quarter of the book is totally wild and fulfills every conspiracy plot that someone could think of. Personally, I think Theo could just write up what happens with her and her brother and become a bestseller just on that. Nicely twisty and crazy and fun to read. It is best to just suspend all disbelief for this book, unless you are really into conspiracy theories, then it will be right up your alley.

So, all in all, it is fun book, pretty quick read, and lots of actions, bodies, destruction, and even ferals in Australia and doomsday preppers. This book has it all.

A literary thriller about an aspiring writer who meets and falls in love with her literary idol—only to find him murdered the day after she gave him her manuscript to read.

There's nothing easier to dismiss than a conspiracy theory—until it turns out to be true

When Theodosia Benton abandons her career path as an attorney and shows up on her brother's doorstep with two suitcases and an unfinished novel, she expects to face a few challenges. Will her brother support her ambition or send her back to finish her degree? What will her parents say when they learn of her decision? Does she even have what it takes to be a successful writer?

What Theo never expects is to be drawn into a hidden literary world in which identity is something that can be lost and remade for the sake of an audience. When her mentor, a highly successful author, is brutally murdered, Theo wants the killer to be found and justice to be served. Then the police begin looking at her brother, Gus, as their prime suspect, and Theo does the unthinkable in order to protect him. But the writer has left a trail, a thread out of the labyrinth in the form of a story. Gus finds that thread and follows it, and in his attempt to save his sister he inadvertently threatens the foundations of the labyrinth itself. To protect the carefully constructed narrative, Theo Benton, and everyone looking for her, will have to die. (GoodReads synopsis)

This novel started strong. I was drawn in and I wanted to know how the mystery would unfold. However, when I got to a major plot point, I became seriously lost. I’m glad I had the audio part of the book because I literally couldn’t sit still with it.

I thought Theo was young. What I mean is that she just did things that made reminded me of my teenage nieces who are extremely sheltered. She also seemed a bit helpless. I understand that she was from Australia, but I would think that even they teach their people when to dial the police. She had a fantastic relationship with her brother and with Mac, and then it was like, “oh forget you.” I really didn’t like that.

I also didn’t like the time jumps. It made the sequences feel discombobulated. One minute I thought Gus was feeling one thing, and the next he was doing or feeling something else. The author was good about telling readers there was a time jump but it just felt disconnected.

There was also a disconnect with the villains. I’m still not 100 percent sure what happened and why they did anything.

Overall, I rate this novel 3 out of 5 stars.

Theo has given up on studying law in Australia and ends up at her brother's doorstep in Lawrence, Kansas. She's decided she wants to write. She holes up at a local coffee shop / bar where she writes away, drinks coffee, rubs elbows with the locals, becomes a regular amongst the other writers in town.

Then people around her start getting murdered.

Sulari Gentill has a good premise. There are some big swings and unexpected twists. Novels about writing, about writers get my attention. I wanted more from this one though. More of the books within the book, more of the process, the writing. More about what made Theo's (and the other books in the book) so compelling. Filling in those blanks would have moved The Mystery Writer into four-star territory.

My thanks to NetGalley and Poisoned Pen Press for the ARC.

“Perhaps the dead are afraid to live as much as we are afraid to die.”


I think I would have liked this book better if I hadn’t read the summary first. I did enjoy the book, but the summary was misleading to me:

“…the police begin looking at her brother, Gus, as their prime suspect, and Theo does the unthinkable in order to protect him. But the writer has left a trail, a thread out of the labyrinth in the form of a story. Gus finds that thread and follows it, and in his attempt to save his sister he inadvertently threatens the foundations of the labyrinth itself. To protect the carefully constructed narrative, Theo Benton, and everyone looking for her, will have to die.”

This is what I thought the bulk of the book would be describing. For one, this is probably only the last 20% of the book. Theo doesn’t disappear until 75% in. Two, the ‘threatening of the foundations of the labyrinth’ seems like a bad thing in this summary, but if Theo is stuck in there, isn’t that actually a good thing? Three, thread makes it seem like a continuous series of clues you keep pulling on until you unravel it, but in actuality, the thread was one not-so-hidden clue found by Mac, not Gus.

I thought the majority of the book was going to be figuring out what Theo’s ‘unthinkable’ thing was and that she had left a manuscript behind with clues in it as to where she is or what’s going on. That was an intriguing concept to me.

But it’s not quite so complex.


Theo, an aspiring writer, gets dragged into a mess of murders after she gets involved with another writer who she finds murdered in his home just 24 hours after she had given her manuscript to him.

As others around her also get murdered, she is a suspect… and by association her lawyer brother as well.

She has to figure out who murdered her friend and why. Who can she can trust now that she and her brother are in danger.

Another aspect of this book is the interspersed snippets of chat room discussion on a conspiracy theory known as the Frankenstein Project which they believe is an experiment being conducted on people, dead and alive, by an organization called the Labyrinth .

Having read it now, I think that I’m grasping what the author was attempting to do here, but at the same time, I’m still a little confused about what I’m supposed to see as a conspiracy theory’s tendency to exaggerate and dramatize the truth versus what I’m supposed to see as a shocking revelation of what’s really going on.

The author leaves you on a bit of a cliffhanger, but as far as I know this was meant to be a stand alone novel. So the last couple paragraphs made me just sit there for a minute trying to figure out what I missed. (One thing I completely forgot about was the prologue.)



The idea of incorporating a conspiracy theory into a thriller is super interesting to me, especially considering the power they have to change people’s behavior or cause mistrust.

In the book it says, “If you need people to distrust the education system, or the media, or fast food, [such and such] would develop a conspiracy theory that would do it.”

That statement seems to imply that all conspiracy theories are untrue, and we should inherently trust everyone. That’s what makes conspiracy theories interesting. What truths are they tapping into? Knowing people are sinful and have a capability for evil it takes a lot of discernment to know what to trust. While many conspiracy theories are beyond ridiculous (birds, for instance) I think we also have to understand the power move it is to label a belief as a conspiracy theory to convince people to ignore any of the truths that may be found in it.

However, in this book, the conspiracy theory just felt bizarre and confusing when it could have been fleshed out more. It was hard to tell how important the author wanted it to be in the story.

Also the Primus character didn’t seem to fit in the way it was supposed to considering who the person was and what their warnings were saying.



I think this book would benefit from a rewritten summary or even better— spend more time on the last 20% because that’s where the action happened. This book had a lot of potential, and I did enjoy reading it, but as I sit down to write the review I’m realizing more and more the parts that ended up being unsatisfying. It didn’t go the direction I was expecting/wanting and there was too much anticipation of the action on the front end.

Plus we jump months and even years into the future in the last few chapters which was disappointing and definitely played into the need to suspend belief. I feel like the author focused and expanded on the wrong parts.

Towards the end there was some confusion for me about what was happening, but I read a digital advanced reader’s copy and I’m assuming not all the formatting was in place. I plan to check the physical copy if my library has one to see how it ended up being written. It was jumping back and forth between two characters/locations but it wasn’t clear and I had to reread several parts because I was confused why those characters were all of a sudden in the same place (they weren’t).

But again— hopefully this was fixed in the official published version!


Considering the author is Australian and lives in Australia, I thought the Kansas setting was an interesting choice. Kansas doesn’t have a whole lot to offer (although she did send me down a crazy rabbit hole regarding The Bloody Benders who may have had a connection to Laura Ingalls Wilder’s family). But I guess it is a good location if you want to incorporate some bizarre characters like the doomsday preppers with all their guns and bunkers and such.

Some reviewers mentioned that reading the book made you think all Americans run around with guns, but I didn’t think that at all. Maybe it’s because I’m from Iowa and guns are common but not everywhere? There are characters with guns, especially the preppers, but I don’t really think there were that many, if any, other characters with guns.

At one point a character comments that Americans respond to surprises by shooting, but that’s a well-known stereotype that I read more as humor than any actual attempt to label America, although even though not all Americans have guns, I would say that shooting at least with their words would probably be an accurate description of most. I also think readers are adept enough to understand that preppers don’t represent an entire country.



Even though we were in Kansas, Theo and Gus were Australians and we got to see Gentill’s roots show through: from Vegemite (which is to be spread sparingly over a thick layer of butter), to calling Americans emotional, the Tasmanian term for hippies being ‘ferals’ and how they called their parents ‘the ancients,’ to their eating of chicken parma (which I knew was a popular Australian dish because of Australian Survivor), it was kinda fun to see an Australian planted in Kansas.

Gentill had some good, interesting characters. I would probably agree with other reviewers that Theo was a bit boring, though, and I feel like she should have been more wary of one of the characters than she was, but considering what she ended up doing, I don’t know if it would have mattered anyway.



Recommendation

This one is hard to know how to recommend. I really did enjoy the book as I was reading it— I didn’t find it boring by any means, but overall it did feel unsatisfying for what I was expecting and what I feel the author could have done with the concept.

I think a lot of people will still like this book even with some of my qualms. Others may not think the reading was worth the convolution, or may not enjoy conspiracy theories.

I think I would still consider reading other Gentill books as many reviewers have said this book was different than her others.


[Content Advisory: 31 f-words, 2 s-words; one implied sex scene]


**Received an ARC via NetGalley**

This book sounded like something I would really get into, but unfortunately that was not the case. I did enjoy the beginning and the mystery but I did not find the ending satisfying for my taste. I find books about the publishing industry interesting and I started out enjoying reading about it, but ended up questioning the direction it was taking with it. There were several conspiracy theories and secrets to keep up with. Thank you Poisoned Pen Press for providing this book for review consideration via NetGalley. All opinions are my own.

Thank you to NetGalley and to Poisoned Press for this arc in exchange for an honest review.

I was really interested in this book based on the description but I just could not get into this book. The beginning started well but then I became lost and eventually lost interest.

I will check out other books by this author as maybe this is just a one off and not for me. I think everyone should try this book because it may just not be for me while others may love it!

I loved her previous book 'The Woman in the Library' but, I really struggled to connect with Theo in 'The Mystery Writer' and I found her frustrating throughout the book.

I was very into the book in the beginning and then about halfway through it lost all focus, I lost all focus on reading it and I just wanted to shake Theo for being so naive and so in need of constant reassurance.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publishing team for the e-Arc in exchange for my honest review.

The Mystery Writer
By Sulari Gentill

This is a very interesting book. It contains murders (three to be exact), conspiracy theorists/doomsday preppers, pedophilia, crazy families, and love. What a mix!

Theodosia Benton – "Theo" to friends and family – is an Aussie law student who shows up at her brother's door in Lawrence, KS. She tells Gus that she has dropped out of law school to follow her passion to be a novelist. Her brother allows her to stay with him while she writes her book. But he tells her she must find somewhere outside his home where she can do her writing. It is during the months she is writing at Bender's Café and Bar that she meets and falls for Dan Murdoch, a famous writer living in town. When Theo finishes her book, she asks Dan if he would submit it to his agent, Veronica Cole, who works for Day Delos and Associates, "the best literary agents in the country". Dan refuses even though he tells her she is very talented. And from there the real action begins.

There is much to like here. The characters are fun – both the good guys and the bad guys. I even liked the crazy families. The overall plot hangs together pretty well. There are some things though that didn't quite hold together – like the antagonism of the local police, especially Detective Mendes, toward the protagonists right from the beginning. Also the last 40 or so pages left me with the feeling that the author was not sure exactly what the ending should look like. Either this was due to poor editing or the author feeling rushed to end it.

Over all I enjoyed the book and will go back to read earlier books by this author.

This is my first book from this author. I love a good who-done-it. This book kept me on my toes with its twists and turns. I cant wait to see how it does since its been published

Initially I thought this had a promising start, a young woman quitting law school, a path dictated by her grandfather, and striving to become a writer. However, there was a bizarre dual storyline going on here where in the background was a conspiracy theory reflective of today's culture. The connection to the mystery writer wasn't evident until much later in the story and by that time, I was lost and not interested. I wanted the characters to grow more and develop but that didn't happen much. Halfway in, I admit, I was ready to give it up. A thriller? Somewhat, but more like a mystery that can't old a candle to Agatha Christie. Many thanks to #netgalley #themysterywriter #sularigentill for the opportunity to read and review this book.

Conspiracy theories & Murder mysteries, but make it bookish.

Theo is a writer looking to get her start in the literary community. While working tirelessly on her first novel, she befriends a man at the coffee shop who becomes her mentor and develops a romantic relationship with him…that is until she finds him murdered. Naturally, Theo is taking the fall for it.

Theo is now not only trying to clear her own name, but also determine if her friend’s murder was a part of something much bigger - were all the online conspiracy theorists onto something?

Believable/realistic storyline? Maybe it was a little far fetched (or is that what they want us to think😉)

Thank you to NetGalley and Poisoned Pen Press for an advanced copy in exchange for an honest review!

Theo Benton quits law school, showing up on her brother's doorstep in Kansas with a half-written manuscript and a dream to become a writer. She starts working in Bender's cafe, a coffeeshop, where she meets a famous author named Dan Murdoch, who is working on a manuscript that details various conspiracy theories. The two strike up a friendship, which turns to romance, which then abruptly ends when he is found murdered.

Before she knows it, Theo is entrenched in a mystery that puts herself, her brother, Gus, and a private agent named Mac at risk. Not only are the theory conspiracists abounding, but there are doomsday preppers as well as a shady publishing agency to contend with.

Usually I am all about a mystery-writer-within-a-murder-mystery plotline, but this one didn't land with me. Theo was too damsel in distress exhaustive for my taste. While I appreciated her relationship with her brother, especially their unconditional love and protectiveness of one another, the plot got too convoluted, too weighed down by conspiracy theory meta, and didn't focus enough on building complexity in the characters. I felt disconnected from them as a result.

Thank you to NetGalley and Poisoned Pen Press for the ARC in exchange for my review.

Thank you for the opportunity to read this novel! I was not able to stay captive with the storyline, so I did not finish and won't be leaving a full review.

The plot of The Mystery Writer is quirky and unexpected, and for me a winner. Theodosia (Theo) Benton has dropped out of law school in Australia and shows up on her brother Augustus (Gus)'s doorstep in small town Lawrence, Kansas announcing her goal to be a writer. She finds a nice cafe/bar downtown to write in during the day, where she meets "writer in residence" Dan Murdoch, who has a string of successful novels and takes Theo under his wing. Then things start to happen quickly: Dan is murdered, Theo is a suspect and her life may be in danger from Dan's fans, which include a group of people who think he was the leader of an underground group fighting imagined threats based on crazy conspiracy theories. This book has lots of action and slightly insane plot twists, as well as interesting and likeable characters. If you're "ready for something different", give it a read!

Australian law student Theo Benton has left law school to move to the United States to live with her protective older brother, Gus, and to write her debut novel. She writes at a bar/café called Benders where she meets and falls for bestselling novelist Dan Murdoch. Having completed a novel in record time, Theo presents her manuscript to Dan to pass along to his literary agent who works for Day Delos and Associates, a shadowy agency that doesn’t only represent writers but takes over control of their lives.

Dan declines her request, warning Theo that Day Delos isn’t for her, but when Theo finds Dan dead and his agent comes knocking to potentially offer representation, she is both confused and flattered and doesn’t see any big red flags in this setup. Add to this a subplot of online conspiracy theorists and the newly minted writer’s ambitions collide with a quasi-political world that threatens her and Gus’s lives.

The Mystery Writer features a cast of mostly likable characters, including Gus, Horse the dog, and Mac, the wealthy private eye who seems much better off financially than Gus the law partner, which still feels weird and forced to me.

I was excited to watch Dan Murdoch’s murder investigation unfold and curious how Theo would untangle herself from the suspect pool, but if every main character must have strengths, I can’t come up with one for Theo who is constantly being rescued by Gus, Mac, and even Horse.

Enter a lot of guns, and Mac’s doomsday prepper family members, and the mystery devolves into something of a convoluted mess that is contrived at best and insulting at worst. It is a writer’s responsibility to consider the nuances of cultures outside of their own. The author perpetuates a harmful stereotype of Americans as gun-toting, trigger-happy citizens who wouldn’t hesitate to shoot a neighbor for walking into one of our homes for a cup of sugar if the front door is unlocked. This is more or less stated when Gus chastises Theo for walking into Dan Murdoch’s house unannounced and without warning.

Americans are a diverse population, and there are plenty of anti-firearm Americans, though you won’t see them in this book, and I’m sure there are educated preppers. Still, the author chooses to lean on a redneck trope that furthers the weak conspiracy theorist narrative. In a world where we’re employing sensitivity readers to ensure fair representation, I cannot believe that a publisher selling this novel in the US didn’t think that this would pose a potential issue.

I could overlook the tropes if they served the plot better, but The Mystery Writer is a miss for me after the first forty percent during which I was genuinely hooked. Like The Woman in the Library, which also let me down, I was looking for author growth requesting this ARC. Unfortunately, it cements her as someone whose work I won’t read a third time. There’s an interesting hook buried deep within this novel about the cost of personal mistakes in cancel culture but it’s wildly underdeveloped. The Mystery Writer is cautiously recommended for fans of shadowy agencies and conspiracy theories with the caveat that a reader must suspend disbelief throughout. Thank you to the author, publisher, and NetGalley for the ARC.

The Mystery Writer by Sulari Gentill might be seen as a scathing denouncement of the publishing industry if one were a cynic. Whatever the message, it was an excellent mystery, full of murder, threats, veiled or otherwise, and intrigue. It was comprised of a group of misfits lurking on the Internet to a young writer, hoping to publish her first work. Theodosia Benton, (Theo) had left law school in Australia and arrived on her brother’s doorstep without a real plan. She knew she didn’t want to return to law school. She and her brother were part aborigine, Australia. Their parents were vagabonds but wanted the best for their children. Gus was a lawyer, in Lawrence, Kansas. Theo would never be a lawyer. She took to spending her days in what was a cafe by day and a bar by night, writing. There were others writers there although they didn’t interact much. Until one day one did. Dan Murdoch. They became friends, then they made love, then he was murdered.

What a good story this was, if a little overboard, but most fictional murders are, aren’t they? Theo’s problems stemmed from immaturity, until they didn’t and she handled something, if not well, better. She trusted her publisher. Why wouldn’t she? They had published Dan’s books. They wanted what was best for her, didn’t they? What a good character. Her brother Gus, was as well. Both pretty clean cut young adults. Her parents were odd, but? The plot was improbable but interesting and well-thought-out. It kept me wondering. I figured out a little of it early on but hardly to the full extent. The only issue I have with the fabulous book is that the ending seemed a little rushed. It was like she didn’t really know how to end it and had a word limit. That didn’t negate the quality of the whole, however. Thanks, Sulari Gentill!

The narrator was Katherine Littrell who was excellent. She kept the momentum and made me want to keep listening. She was the perfect narrator for this book. Couldn’t have asked for a better one.

I was invited to read The Mystery Writer by Poisoned Pen Press and listen by Dreamscape Media. All thoughts and opinions are mine. #Netgalley #PoisonedPenPress #DreamscapeMedia #SulariGentill #TheMysteryWriter

3.5⭐️

When twenty-two-year-old Theodosia “Theo” Benton drops out of law school in Australia, she ends up in Lawrence, Kansas, at the home of her older brother Gus, a practicing lawyer. Theo is an aspiring writer and Gus is supportive of her goals, encouraging her to pursue her dreams. At Gus’ insistence, she finds a place to sit and write - a bar named Benders where she meets Dan Murdoch, a best-selling author whom she quickly befriends. Dan encourages Theo and from him, she begins to understand how the publishing world works. But when Dan is brutally murdered, Theo, Gus, and their friend Mac are drawn into a complex web of conspiracy, lies, deception, and murder. As the narrative progresses, Theo realizes that all was not as it seemed right in Dan’s world and that sometimes the truth can be stranger than fiction.

I was intrigued by the premise of The Mystery Writer by Sulari Gentill. Cleverly crafted and well-paced, with a solid mystery at its core with some interesting twists along the way, this novel surely held a lot of promise. My first problem with the novel was the fact that I wasn’t a fan of Theo, who is portrayed to be a bit too naïve for my liking. I did like the other characters and especially loved reading about their lives in Tasmania and the bond between the adult siblings even though they didn’t spend much time together growing up. The conspiracy theories and doomsday preppers added to the intrigue (and the entertainment value) in the story and I was eager to see where the characters finally landed. I also wasn’t a fan of the time jumps (yes, more than one) toward the end which made me feel like I was missing parts of the story, despite the narrative feeling a tad too lengthy. Usually, I love complicated mysteries and enjoy trying to guess the identity of the culprit and don’t mind suspending disbelief. However, the plot became too convoluted (laughably so) toward the end and way over the top for me to appreciate the direction of the story or the final revelations.

I really enjoyed The Woman in the Library by Sulari Gentill and was eager to read the author’s new book. While the premise of the novel is enticing, and I found some of the characters and plot twists definitely interesting, I didn’t enjoy this one as much as I had hoped.

I paired my reading with the audiobook narrated by Katherine Littrell. The excellent narration breathes life into the story and the characters and makes for an engaging immersion reading experience. The audio narration definitely enhanced my overall experience with this novel.

Many thanks to Poisoned Pen Press for the digital review copy and Dreamscape Media for the ALC via NetGalley. All opinions expressed in this review are my own.

In The Mystery Writer, nothing is as it seems. Theo decides she wants to forgo her studies to be a lawyer, and write a novel instead. In doing so, she meets a famous writer and forms an alliance with him. When their meeting finally turns to romance, she is shocked to find her lover dead a day later. From there on, things get very murky.

Maybe I'm just not smart enough to follow the threads of this book, but I found the plot very convoluted, and I am not a fan of conspiracy theories, so this aspect of the story just annoyed me. On the plus side, the writing itself is good. It just wasn't a story line I enjoyed.

Thank you to NetGalley, the author, and Poison Pen for allowing me to read this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Absolutely loved this novel. It was a refreshing thriller that wasnt a beating over my head with the narrative thank you netgalley

A fantastically plotted mystery sure to delight book lovers.

The Woman in the Library was a favorite of 2022 for me so I knew I would most likely love The Mystery Writer and it did not disappoint.

After dropping out of law school, Theo goes to stay with her brother while she tries to finish her novel. She finds a coffee shop where she can work and as luck would have it, there's another mystery writer who frequents the shop. After he takes Theo under her wing, Dan is murdered and Theo gets pulled deep into a web of conspiracy, which she can make neither heads nor tails of. Twisty and full of surprises, The Mystery Writer is a compelling story. My one complaint would be that the story moves around in the timeline a bit much for my taste, which made the ending feel a bit abrupt. I think fans of Gentill's previous work will find this installment a worthwhile read.