Review of The Last Party

Do you love British mysteries? This whodunnit reminded me of some of my favorite British and Scandinavian crime dramas. Check out my review of The Last Party by Clare Mackintosh

Jen’s Quick Take on The Last Party

• Kind of a Locked Room Mystery
• And kind of a Neighborhood Procedural Mystery, set in a small vacation community
• A setting which reminded me of a favorite Scandinavian Noir streamer
• Because it’s set on the border of England and Wales. On a lake!
• An irreverent woman detective who ruffles feathers but gets the job done

The Last Party by Clare Mackintosh

Published on November 8, 2022 by Sourcebooks Landmark. Thanks to the publisher for providing an advance copy, which I accepted in accordance with FTC guidelines.

Review of The Last Party by Clare Mackintosh

I am happy to give an author a second chance and am thrilled when an author who wrote a book I felt “meh” about writes a book that I love.

Back in 2014, I read Clare Mackintosh’s debut, I Let You Go. I didn’t like the book’s twist and complained in my Goodreads review about the “clunky narrative summary” and “awkward tell-not-show moments.”

So I was thrilled that I really liked The Last Party, a police procedural with a premise that reminded me of The Bridge, a 2011 Scandi thriller about a body found on the Øresund Bridge connecting Sweden and Denmark. In 2013, another show inspired by The Bridge was released. In The Tunnel, a French politician is found dead on the border between the UK and France, leading a duo of detectives (Brit Karl Roebuck and Frenchwoman Elise Wasserman) to be sent to solve the crime.

The Last Party takes place on Lake Llyn Drych (Mirror Lake), a lake situated between England and Wales. I don’t know a lot of European history, but I do know that the relationship between England and Wales is a long and complicated one. England conquered Wales at least twice between the 13th and 16th centuries and today Wales has a robust independence movement. (If you know more about this, please fill us in down in the comments!)

The Last Party begins on New Year’s Day. A body is found floating in Lake Llyn Drych, and both Leo Brady of Cheshire (England) Major Crime and Detective Constable Ffion Morgan of North Wales CD are asked to work together to solve the case.

That’s difficult enough, but the night before (New Year’s Eve) Leo and Ffion, both using fake names, had a one night stand. Awkward. Ffion is a small town wild child who, to everyone’s surprise, became a police constable. Leo is a dedicated British police officer distracted by his messy divorce.

The victim, Rhys Lloyd, was a renowned Welsh opera singer who is a partial owner of The Shore, a luxury cottage resort that the locals oppose.

Who killed Rhys and why? There are plenty of suspects.

Will You Like The Last Party?

I really enjoyed The Last Party, which felt a bit like The Tunnel crossed with Broadchurch (the British version, obviously, not the inferior American version).

I loved the small town atmosphere, the animosity (and attraction) between Leo and Ffion, and the fact that EVERYONE in Com Coed seems to be a suspect.

If you love police procedurals and British crime books and dramas, I think you will enjoy The Last Party. If you are a dedicated thriller reader and find mysteries too slow and methodical, you might not enjoy this one as much as I did. Some people on my Goodreads feed thought The Last Party was too slow-paced, so you might want to try one of Mackintosh’s thrillers instead. (Like I Let You Go, which has an equally high Goodreads rating.

I’m happy with The Last Party, which is the first of a series, making me excited about book two!

UPDATE: Book Two is out. It’s called Game of Lies, and my review is here!

What Else has Clare Mackintosh Written? Clare Mackintosh books in order

Clare Mackintosh’s debut book was a mystery called I Let You Go in 2014 (a book I really wasn’t a fan of). She followed that with another thriller, I See You, in 2017. In 2018, she published the psychological thriller Let Me Lie. She has also written women’s fiction: After the End in 2019 and The Donor in 2020.