The Woman in the Library

The city of Boston, Massachusetts, is the primary setting of the novel, and the locales where events occur are real sites in Boston or imagined ones. Boston appears in Hannah’s novel as the cold, old American city divided into affluent districts like the Back Bay Area where Hannah lives and the more bohemian, diverse neighborhood of Roxbury where Cain lives. Fictional author Hannah’s decision to use the Back Bay neighborhood (home of real-life apartments in Victorian brownstones like Carrington Place), the Boston Public Library, and sites around Copley Place, allow Hannah to add cozy touches to her whodunit mystery.

Gentill’s representation of Boston shifts as Hannah recasts her novel to provoke Leo A. Leo A also recasts Boston for Hannah by creating a map where he marks “alleys and places hidden from passing view in which one might kill someone without risk of witnesses” (118). This Boston reflects Leo A’s interest in making Boston the scene for a gritty crime mystery.

Some locales in the book are imaginary. While there are shops like Around the Hole that serve up gourmet doughnuts in unusual flavors, there is no Around the Hole in Boston as of the publication of The Woman in the Library.