Lenny Marks Gets Away with Murder

• Author: Kerryn Mayne
• Genre: Mystery
• Publication Date: July 9, 2024
• Publisher: St. Martin’s Press

Thank you to NetGalley, St. Martin’s Press, and Macmillan Audio for providing me with an ARC of this book and audiobook in exchange for an honest review.

CONTENT WARNING: child abuse, alcoholism, animal abuse, parental abandonment, suicide attempt, domestic violence, murder, trauma

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.

If I was judging this book based solely off the title and the cover, I’d have thought that this one was a cozy mystery, or maybe even something along the lines of Finlay Donovan Is Killing It. So imagine my surprise when this book turned out to be more like Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine goes to Australia. Mind you, that surprise was a great thing, because not only did I love Eleanor Oliphant, I also discovered that this book was a fantastic read. Don’t get misled by the cover and the title, this book is a powerhouse, and Lenny Marks will be taking up space in my head for a while.

When we first meet Lenny, we are introduced to her and the strict routines that she lives by. There is very little change in her life: she rides her bicycle home from the elementary school where she teaches at the same time every day; she eats the exact same rotation of meals every week; has an obsessive love for The Hobbit, of which she has 36 copies; and her social life includes playing Scrabble with her imaginary best friend, Monica Gellar (from the show Friends), while watching reruns of said show. 

The routines came across a little obsessive to me, but Lenny’s character is so sweet and likable that she was immediately endearing. It quickly becomes evident that there is something in Lenny’s past that contributes to her way of life in the present. Lenny is obviously highly intelligent, and one of her most commonly used coping skills is to create anagrams of words in her head. I must admit that I was so impressed by the number of words that she was able to come up with in her head, since I love anagram puzzles, but I can only do it when I see the words written out in front of me. And she really only ever created anagrams of words with negative connotations, which spoke about her mental state and coping ability.

Lenny struggles significantly with interpersonal relationships, with friends and significant others, and basically with anyone that she comes into prolonged contact with. It made it even more puzzling to me that she chose a career in teaching, yet she didn’t seem to have any issues interacting with the students that she works with. Maybe because children are more direct, and she seems to have more trouble with inferring meaning from other people. 

When a letter from the parole board arrives for Helena Winters, Lenny’s birth name, Lenny’s routines and anagrams aren’t enough to block out flashbacks from her past. As she learns more about her early years and the circumstances that led to her abandonment by her mother and stepfather, she is forced to let down some of her walls and create bonds with the people around her. This was where the book really started to get interesting. Not only because Lenny starts to really connect with other people, but also because she starts to connect with the past and with some aspects of herself that she’s suppressed for more than half her life. It was fascinating to see her change throughout this story. She really went through a lot of pain in the story, but it wasn’t for nothing—it was the kind of pain that needed to occur for growth, and she grew immensely throughout the book. While it was really difficult to see her going through all of this, it was wonderful to see the changes that took place in Lenny over the course of the story.

Much like I felt about Eleanor Oliphant, this is an absolutely fantastic book, but it’s the kind where there are some really heavy triggers that should be noted before reading. I was especially disturbed by the scene involving abuse of a dog, although even that served a purpose in the story by allowing Lenny to practice new and different behaviors. All of the triggers in the story have a reason for being in there, and don’t ever cross the line into trauma porn. The second half of the book moves a bit faster than the first half, but there’s a lot more happening in the second half, as we delve deeper into Lenny’s past, and it becomes a part of her current reality as she learns how to integrate new information, ask for help from the people around her, and become a healthier version of herself. I adored everything about this book, and the audiobook version is narrated wonderfully by Annie Maynard, who has a strong Australian accent, but it isn’t too heavy to understand her clearly, and she had me rooting for Lenny the entire time. This is the kind of book you’ll adore if you liked Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine, stories about underdogs overcoming immense challenges, mysteries from the past, and how trauma manifests in various ways.

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