Riveting novel of dark secrets

The Other Mrs Walker by Mary Paulson-Ellis (Mantle, an imprint of Pan Macmillan) Scottish author Mary Paulson-Ellis has won two writing awards, published non-fiction and short stories, but this is her first novel. A well-written story that jumps backwards and forwards to times between the 1930s and 2010s, it keeps the reader’s attention right to the last page as a family’s history is slowly revealed.

A runaway daughter returns after years in London to her ageing mother in Edinburgh. She finds work tracking down the family and documentation of people who die alone in the city. Her first case intrigues her as strange items are found in the flat of the dead pensioner she investigates. A family with many secrets is revealed. Petty crime and exploitation runs through the characters’ interaction over three generations. Even the resolution in the epilogue is unexpected. This is an author to look out for when her next novel is published. – Susan Stead.