Review: The Last Party

The Last Party by Clare Mackintosh
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I received an ARC of this book.
This was a satisfying beginning to a new series by one of my favorite authors, Clare Mackintosh. I have enjoyed several of her other books, so when I heard she was writing a series set in Wales about a female detective I couldn't wait to read it.
Rhys Lloyd, a slightly has-been celebrity, has returned to his hometown in Wales to build a luxury resort on a beautiful lake. Most of the residents of the area resent Rhys and his new business endeavor, however, and when his body is found in the lake, Welsh DC Ffion Morgan is paired up with English DC Leo Brady to find out what happened. Unraveling secrets that want to stay buried will be a huge challenge, especially when some of those secrets belong to Ffion herself.
I enjoyed this book. I wouldn't say it was a tense, gripping thriller, but more of a slow-burn police procedural type of mystery. Ffion was an incredibly intriguing character, and the author did a great job of making sure that Leo was a great "partner" in their investigation and counterpoint to her character. The secondary characters were also fleshed out very well. The mystery was well-plotted and the ending was spot-on.
My only issue with the book was the way the time-line jumped all over the place. We have the mystery and action begin in the "present" when Rhys's body is discovered, and then every so often the setting will jump back to the past, before the murder took place. This in and of itself is not a big deal--a large number of mystery books use dual timelines. But in this book we would jump from January, just after the murder, to August, then back to January, then October, then January, then June, then back to January again, then December, and so on and so on. I would much rather have had the "past" timeline move in a more linear fashion. It took away from the flow of the book and made the uncovering and revealing of clues feel less organic and more "convenient."
That being said, I really did like the book and am eagerly awaiting the next installment in the series. Ffion is a character worth rooting for and I will enjoy following her journey.

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