finished reading

This isn't a traditional mystery/thriller; it's more of a character study. From the beginning of the novel, you know that Mad Mabel is the youngest murderer convicted in Australia.  The story of that fateful incident is slowly revealed in the dual timeline:  then and now.  We meet the titular character as an 81-year-old curmudgeon, living a relatively reclusive life in the now portion of the narration.  Then we experience life as a misunderstood and relentlessly ridiculed child in the then portion, told as recollections for a YouTuber's exposé.  

I don't want to reveal any of the plot twists, so I'll leave it at that.  This will be one of my favorite reads of the year.

From the publisher:

Meet Mad Mabel.

Elsie Mabel Fitzpatrick is eighty-one years old. She's lived on her idyllic street, Kenny Lane, for sixty years--longer than anyone else. Aside from being a curmudgeon who minds everyone else's business, few would suspect that Elsie has a past that she has worked exceedingly hard at concealing. Because when it comes to murder, no one ever suspects little girls or old ladies. And Elsie Mabel Fitzpatrick, once a little girl and now an old lady, has a strange history of people in her life coming to a foul end.

When a new little girl (talkative, curious, nosy) moves into the neighborhood and stops at nothing to befriend Elsie, her carefully-constructed life threatens to come crashing down as the secrets in Elsie's past start coming to light. Who was "Mad Mabel" fifty years ago? Who is Elsie Fitzpatrick today? And if the past has a habit of repeating itself, who has the most to lose?

Told with Sally Hepworth's twists, humor, charm, and heart, MAD MABEL is novel that weaves past and present together--through the power of justice and redemption, and all the way to its stunning conclusion.