Book Review: The Last Party- Clare Mackintosh
After delivering multiple standalone best sellers, Clare Mackintosh writes for the very first time a crime thriller that looks to be the start of a series.
The story is set around Llyn Drych (Mirror Lake) and through the centre of this lake runs the border that separates Wales and England. On the Welsh side is the close-knit village of CWM Coed and on the opposite bank, on the English side, is a new luxury development called The Shore. For the Welsh village, The Shore was an unwelcome development and through the book, you sense the tensions that run between both communities.
The book opens with a body being discovered in the lake, at the start of the annual New Year’s Day swim, which is traditional for the villagers in CWM Coed. We later discover that the body belongs to a celebrity, Rhys Lloyd, who is a resident of The Shore and one of its primary developers. He also has a history in CWM Coed. From there on we are introduced to the investigative team which includes Deputy Constable Ffion Morgan from the Welsh Constabulary and DC Leo Brady from the English Constabulary. DC Ffion Morgan grew up in CWM Coed and as the story unravels, we realise almost everyone in CWM Coed has a strong motive to want Rhys dead.
The book has a beautiful setting with the mirror lake and the Pen y Ddraig mountain against its backdrop. In Mackintosh’s words “The reflection of the mountains stretches into the centre of the lake, so solid you feel you could step on to it, no hint of the black and fathomless depths beneath”. You could almost transport yourself there and feel the chill in the air on that New Year’s Day through Mackintosh’s words. She has written strong, well-thought-out characters and the story is written in a unique style- whereby it has scenes written from one character's point of view and in the later sections of the book we read the same scenes through the eyes of another character, thus shattering any initial perceptions we may have built about the story. As the book progresses though, I did have a tough time keeping track of the many characters that lived in CWM Coed and the Shore. I would have preferred the story to be more fast-paced but the myriad characters seemed to drag it down in parts. The ending arrived rather abruptly and didn’t quite deliver the punch the story left me anticipating. However, I must admit I did like enough of this book to want to give the second book in this series a try when it comes out in the future. I enjoyed reading the strong and complex DC Ffion Morgan and the chemistry she had with DC Leo Brady.
If you are someone who enjoys reading character-driven, descriptive who dunnits and doesn’t mind taking a long route to reach the end, do give this book a try. On the other hand, if you prefer fast-paced, edge-of-the-seat thrillers, this may not be the book for you
-Anju