Lenny Marks Gets Away with Murder: A Novel

by Kerryn Mayne

Overview

Lenny Marks is excellent at not having a life.

She bikes home from work at exactly 4pm each day, buys the same groceries for the same meals every week, and owns thirty-six copies of The Hobbit (currently arranged by height). The closest thing she has to a friendship is playing Scrabble against an imaginary Monica Gellar while watching Friends reruns.

And Lenny Marks is very, very good at not remembering what happened the day her mother and stepfather disappeared when she was still a child. The day a voice in the back of her mind started whispering, You did this.

Until a letter from the parole board arrives in the mail—and when her desperate attempts to ignore it fail, Lenny starts to unravel. As long-buried memories come to the surface, Lenny’s careful routines fall apart. For the first time, she finds herself forced to connect with the community around her, and unexpected new relationships begin to bloom. Lenny Marks may finally get a life–but what if her past catches up to her first?

Equal parts heartbreaking and heartwarming, Kerryn Mayne’s stunning debut is an irresistible novel about truth, secrets, vengeance, and family lost and found, with a heroine who's simply unforgettable.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781250340108
Publisher:	St. Martin's Publishing Group
Publication date:	07/09/2024
Pages:	352
Sales rank:	48,043
Product dimensions:	6.50(w) x 9.30(h) x 1.20(d)

About the Author

Kerryn Mayne is an author, former wedding photographer, and current police officer. When not at work attempting to solve crime, she is writing about it or preparing an endless stream of snacks for her four children. Kerryn lives in the bayside suburbs of Melbourne with her husband, children and a highly suspect lovebird. She only owns 11 copies of The Hobbit (for now). Lenny Marks Gets Away With Murder is her debut novel.

Editorial Reviews

05/20/2024

Mayne debuts with the underwhelming story of an awkward middle school teacher in Australia whose repressed childhood memories come roaring to the surface. Lenny Marks, 37, generally sticks to herself, though she bonds with her grocer Ned and her elderly neighbor Maureen. One day, Lenny drops in for a visit and finds Maureen unconscious on the floor. The sight triggers flashes of a traumatic childhood event, and Lenny begins to piece together that the scar on her thigh came from her alcoholic stepfather Fergus. The complete details of the incident come out later, after calls from a prison parole board reveal Fergus is incarcerated and that he victimized Lenny, which adds a sense of foreboding and sets the stage for a climactic showdown. Mayne convinces in her depiction of Lenny’s anxious inner life, though a romantic subplot is devoid of chemistry, and a couple left-field twists contort the story rather than enhance it. This doesn’t quite come together. Agent: Elaine Spencer, Knight Agency. (July)

Publishers Weekly

Prepare to fall hard for Lenny Marks…[a] touching, absorbing debut.” —firstCLUE

"With humor, heart and characters you come to love, this is a book you will devour now, and keep thinking about later!" —Sally Hepworth, New York Times bestselling author of The Good Sister

“If you're looking for a quirky, clever heroine with razor-sharp wit, keen observations, and a heart that is too big for this world, look no further than Lenny Marks...Highly recommended!” –Jamie Day, bestselling author of The Block Party

“Beautiful, painful and ultimately completely satisfying, this is a story of an unlikely heroine who rises up to heal the deepest of wounds. I’ll be thinking about Lenny for a long time.” –Annabel Monaghan, bestselling author of Nora Goes Off Script

"Devilishly fun...top marks for Lenny Marks!"- Benjamin Stevenson, bestselling author of Everyone in My Family Has Killed Someone

“Fresh, funny, and compelling.” –Richard Roper, bestselling author of Something to Live For (previously published as How Not to Die Alone)

"A rare gem of a crime novel: mysterious, funny, charming and heartwarming all at once. I would have happily been Lenny’s accomplice from the very first page." —Amy Suiter-Clarke, author of Lay Your Body Down

"A brilliant combination of light and dark, charm and suspense. A debut you won’t forget!"- Candice Fox, author of The Chase

"Compelling. Mayne breaks your heart and shows how sometimes life’s greatest mystery is the truth of our past." - R.W.R. McDonald, author of The Nancys

"An incredible debut which will have you both laughing and crying . . . This is a blackly funny, tender-hearted story of the dark and light of human nature, and ultimately, love, friendship, family and happiness."- Petronella McGovern, author of The Liars

"Kerryn Mayne takes readers on a suspenseful, deeply emotional, and sometimes humorous journey. Lenny is a unique and remarkable character, who will have readers cheering for her from the very first page.’ - Lisa Ireland, author of The Secret Life of Shirley Sullivan

"Lenny Marks Gets Away with Murder is simply one of the strongest debuts we’ve read in a long, long time. Don’t let the 'cozy' packaging fool you: this novel deals with some heavy themes, mainly domestic violence, repressed trauma, and even workplace bullying. But it does so in service of an utterly endearing main character, and with a sure, sensitive hand when it comes to empathy, humor, and hope. Lenny Marks is a teacher who lives alone, cycles everywhere, and has 36 copies of The Hobbit but few close friends. When a letter from the parole board—which Lenny stubbornly ignores—threatens to bring her painful past into her present, the walls she’s built up begin to crack little by little. As Mayne cleverly lets Lenny reveal a breadcrumb trail of clues that build to an understanding of just what she’s been through, readers will find themselves loving this quirky introvert and feeling very protective of her choices. Fans of The Maid or The Good Sister should not miss this exceptional novel." —Vannessa Cronin, Amazon Editor

From the Publisher