This is the middle of my fourth week off, which means I have another four weeks to go before I head back to work, so for me it’s the middle of summer, even if I’m off by a week or so on the actual calendar. I’ve got so many Silver Birch books to read now that this may be my last post for a couple of weeks, as I can’t talk about those books and the pressure’s on to finish them and make my final lists. But I wanted to talk about the book we read for our Friends Book Club last week.
The Last Party by Clare Macintosh opens with Detective Ffion Morgan waking up on New Years Day and slipping out of the arms and bed of a guy she met at a bar the night before. She rushes home, only to be called in to investigate a suspicious death. The body of washed up singer-turned-land developer Rhys Lloyd is found in an icy lake by some villagers in North Wales taking a New Years Day plunge, and Ffion is assigned to the case, but she’s to have a partner in this investigation: Detective Leo Brady from the Chester Major Crimes division is also assigned to the case, as Rhys’ home, and the likely crime scene, is on the opposite shore of the lake, which is in England. When Leo arrives at the scene, it turns out that he is the very man from whose flat Ffion was fleeing just hours earlier. Despite these tensions, they must figure out a way to work together to solve this crime. It appears that Rhys had no shortage of people who wanted him dead. As owner of The Shore, a series of upscale resort-style cottages on the English side of the lake, Rhys was the target of hatred by all the residents of North Wales’ village of Cwm Coed, who opposed this destruction of the pristine land surrounding “their” lake. They also saw this as a desecration of the land on which Rhys’ father lived, land that was meant to stay in the family but remain intact. You see, Rhys’ family grew up in Cwm Coed and he was their big success story, a singer who acquired international fame but whose career had pretty much ended by the time of his death. The residents of the other cottages in The Shore are also suspects, each with their own motives for killing him. Which of these suspects (and there are a lot of them!) did it? Will Ffion and Leo find a way to work together to solve this crime before more people are hurt? You’ll have to read the book to find out! This book was a bit dense, with a lot of back story and so many characters that it may at first seem difficult to keep track of them. I actually started this book some time ago, as I enjoy Macintosh’s books, but found it to have way too much detail for me to stick with it. But then it was selected for our book club so I had to get back to it and get to the end, and I’m so glad I did. It was complex yet credible, with interesting characters and storylines, and so many suspects that it really kept all of us guessing to the very end. And none of our group saw one of the “big reveals” coming, which put yet another twist into the tale. We all agreed that there was a bit too much detail at the beginning of the book but that it was worth the effort to get to the heart of the story, and felt that it was a satisfying conclusion. We're even considering reading the next book in the “DC Morgan” series for a future meeting (there are three in the series at this time). If you like complex mystery/thrillers with interesting characters, lots of suspects and webs of deceit, this could be the book for you!
That’s all for today. Get outside and enjoy the fabulous summer day!
Bye for now… Julie
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