Mad Mabel by Sally Hepworth

In 1959, fifteen-year-old Mabel Waller was convicted as Australia’s youngest murderer. Decades later in suburban Melbourne, her neighbour dies quietly at home—until police uncover Elsie Fitzpatrick’s true identity: Mad Mabel. With media swarming, Mabel decides it’s finally time to tell her side.

Published 30 September 2025, Mad Mabel is a sharp domestic thriller about guilt, memory, and the stories we tell to survive. You can hear the knock of detectives at the door, see flashbulbs flare, feel the tremor of secrets too long buried. Tropes: unreliable narrator, buried past, justice or revenge.

What you are getting

• Format: Trade paperback 
• Pages: 352
• Publisher: Pan Macmillan Australia
• Imprint: Macmillan Australia
• ISBN: 9781761266492
• Publication date: 30 September 2025
• Condition: New

Hepworth blends suburban noir with historical intrigue, showing how reputations and secrets echo across generations. It’s part whodunnit, part character study, and all about the tension between truth and perception.

For readers who enjoyed

• The Soulmate by Sally Hepworth
• Liane Moriarty’s domestic thrillers
• Apples Never Fall by Liane Moriarty
• The Mother-in-Law by Sally Hepworth

Safe passage
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