disclosure: we were sent the item mentioned for the purpose of review
The beginning of the month saw the publication through Avon Books of The Last Girl to Die by Helen Fields and it’s a fast-paced crime thriller that I found thoroughly absorbing.
The Last Girl to Die is set on the Isle of Mull in the Hebrides off the west coast of mainland Scotland. The Clark family are American and have recently emigrated to the island in search of a new life. But their dreams are soon in tatters when their teenage daughter Adriana goes missing. As newcomers to the island, the family find the islanders quite hostile and they feel that the police have been less than helpful in finding her. They draft in Canadian Sadie Levesque, a private investigator, to work on their behalf to try and find their daughter who has been missing for five days by this point.
When Sadie arrives on the island she is the one to find Adriana’s body after a six-day search of the island. She finds the girl’s body in the depths of Mackinnon’s Cave, which is only really accessible at low tide. It becomes clear very quickly that her death wasn’t a tragic accident, her mouth is packed with sand, her head is topped with a seaweed crown and she’d been violated by a large seashell. The local police are none too impressed with Sadie or her discovery.
As Sadie seeks to discover the murderer she also learns about the island and its rich history of myths and legends. When another local girl is also found murdered the police start to take the case seriously but Sadie still doesn’t trust them to solve the case.
The Last Girl to Die is full of twists and turns, the island is really brought to life and the plot builds and builds and I was totally invested in Sadie and her quest for the truth. The book is beautifully written and there is one almighty twist at the end which I wasn’t expecting at all. It’s a brilliant book, go buy it.
