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Death in Her Hands

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Death in Her Hands

By: Ottessa Moshfegh
Narrated by: Anne Marie Lee
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About this listen

Brought to you by Penguin.

From the Booker-shortlisted author of Eileen, a novel of haunting metaphysical suspense

While on her daily walk with her dog in the nearby woods, our protagonist comes across a note, handwritten and carefully pinned to the ground with stones. Her name was Magda. Nobody will ever know who killed her. It wasn't me. Here is her dead body.

Shaky even on her best days, she is also alone, and new to this area, having moved here from her long-time home after the death of her husband, and now deeply alarmed. Her brooding about the note grows quickly into a full-blown obsession, as she explores multiple theories about who Magda was and how she met her fate. Her suppositions begin to find echoes in the real world, and the fog of mystery starts to form into a concrete and menacing shape. But is there either a more innocent explanation for all this, or a much more sinister one – one that strikes closer to home?

In this triumphant blend of horror, suspense, and pitch-black comedy, we must decide whether the stories we tell ourselves guide us closer to the truth or keep us further from it.

© Ottessa Moshfegh 2020 (P) Penguin Audio 2020

 Dark Humour Genre Fiction Horror Literary Fiction Literature & Fiction Metaphysical & Visionary Suspense Thriller & Suspense Scary Comedy Fiction Mystery

Critic reviews

A masterclass in suspense.
Moshfegh is one of the most original and astute young novelists working today. (Orlando Bird)
Routinely hailed as one of the most exciting young American authors working today... Her work takes dirty realism and makes it filthier. But it is is also beautiful...the depravity of her material matched by the purity and precision of her prose. (Lisa Allardice)
Ottessa Moshfegh's Death in Her Hands is a new kind of murder mystery... The work of a writer who is, like Henry James or Vladimir Nabokov, touched by both genius and cruelty... Like a surgeon, or a serial killer, Moshfegh flenses her characters, and her readers, until all that's left is a void. It's the amused contemplation of that void that gives rise to the dark exhilaration of her work -- its wayward beauty, its comedy, and its horror. (Kevin Power)
Much more than a whodunnit... This is a story about what might happen when a woman takes charge... A glorious visceral mystery... Moshfegh is as wise and wild as Ali Smith or Rebecca Solnit, and as gifted a scribe of nature as Annie Dillard or Thoreau. (Melissa Katsoulis)
Ottessa Moshfegh's postmodern whodunit...burnishes Moshfegh's claim as one of the most distinctive American writers around. (Johanna Thomas-Corr)
[Death in Her Hands] cracks open like a matryoshka doll, revealing multiple tales within... Its dark, devious portrait of the troubled psychology of a lonely, stymied woman makes a mark all of its own. (Lucy Scholes)
[A] brilliant off-kilter detective story... An eerie, affecting read. (Eithne Farry)
Clever, dark, funny... A gripping story. (Susannah Butter)
There is an unspoken fascination in those we find abhorrent and Moshfegh writes these women with wit and intrigue, treading a fine line between shocking realism and the absurd. (Ellen Peirson-Hagger)
All stars
Most relevant
I have written very few reviews, even though I have listened to more than 100 titles over the last year. Mostly, I just love everything I listen to, almost indiscriminately. But I found this book quite annoying, monotone and claustrophobic, as it is all told from the inside of the main protagonist's mind. It is clever and even amusing in places (I did actually laugh aloud once or twice) and I did listen to the end, not wanting to 'give up', but I found it hard-going to have no relief from the voice / the thoughts / the ramblings of the narrator. It was very hard to get a perspective of the events, though I guess that was very much the purpose of the approach taken by the author. Interesting but not that enjoyable, IMHO.

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A little bit obsessed by this book, I have read almost all Moshfegh's back catalogue and I was a little daunted by this one for being probably her second weirdest novel to date but it turned out to be very compelling.

It's a sad and lonely uneasy sort of book and not for people who want everything wrapped up neatly by the end, but the clues are all there if you want to make your own decisions and a firm ending would ruin the atmosphere.

What it does do is play out a compelling small scale mystery in the mind of an increasingly unreliable narrator haunted by a cast of characters she barely interacts with and presided over by her dead German husband.

There are a few sections that are genuinely cinematic in a bizarre indie horror way, that sets you up with uneasy scenes without them descending into cheap scares.

I'd rank this between Eileen and My Year of Rest and Relaxation in the three of the four of her novels I've read in terms of how much I enjoyed it, but it's weird style will keep it in my head for some time to come.

Something Different

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Ottessa is an amazing and talented writer and the narrator was great but the story is just boring, empty, the old lady keeps nagging on and on and on, I just can’t stand this character and I’m glad I’ve finished it, the previous one from this author I couldn’t even reach half way through

Great writing, annoying character

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