Book Review | The Last Party by Clare Mackintosh

The Last Party by Clare Mackintosh

★★★★☆

432 pages

Published: November 8, 2022

by Sourcebooks Landmark

At midnight, one of them is dead.
By morning, all of them are suspects.

It’s a party to end all parties, but not everyone is here to celebrate.

On New Year’s Eve, Rhys Lloyd has a house full of guests. His vacation homes on Mirror Lake are a success, and he’s generously invited the village to drink champagne with their wealthy new neighbors.

But by midnight, Rhys will be floating dead in the freezing waters of the lake.

On New Year’s Day, Ffion Morgan has a village full of suspects. The tiny community is her home, so the suspects are her neighbors, friends and family—and Ffion has her own secrets to protect.

With a lie uncovered at every turn, soon the question isn’t who wanted Rhys dead…but who finally killed him.

In a village with this many secrets, murder is just the beginning.

Link to Goodreads

Characters

Ffion Morgan – 30 year old, divorced, Detective Constable in Wales – Cwm Coed (pronounced coom coyd)
Seren Morgan – Ffion’s 16 year old sister
Elen Morgan – Ffion’s mom
Mia Williams – Ffion’s friend, 2 years ahead of Ffion in school – she is the cleaner for The Shores
Leo Brady – Detective Constable in Cheshire
Simon Crouch – Detective Inspector of Cheshire
Allie – Leo’s ex wife; cheated on him with her friend’s husband, Dominic
Harris – Leo’s son
Izzy Weaver – pathologist
Elijah – pathologists assistant
Huw – builder in Cwm Coed. He is owed 30k for work he had done at The Shores
Steffan – he owns the boat shop, he is a recovering alcoholic
Ceri Jones – Postwoman that had gone to school with Rhys
Angharad – Lives in a cottage at the tip of the lake

Residents of The Shores

Rhys Lloyd – owner of The Shore; famous singer – the live at Number 5 at the Shores
Yasmin Lloyd – Rhys’ wife
Glynis Lloyd – Rhys’ mom, local of Cwm Coed – doesn’t technically life at The Shores
Tabby and Felicia – Rhys’ 15 year old twin daughter
Clemence Northcote and her son Caleb – reside in Number 4; they are using the house as their primary residence (even though that is technically not allowed) and purchased the house on a payment plan (also not allowed). They have moved to The Shores to get Caleb away from the trouble he was getting in with the law with his old friends
Bobby Stafford, a famous actor, and his wife Ashleigh Stafford, an influencer – reside at Number 3
Deirdre Huxley – resides at Number 2
Johnty and Charlton – resides at Number 1; they have two small kids: Woody and Hester. Johnty is an investor in The Shores

My Review

I really enjoyed this book. It had a lot of red herrings and it was hard to tell who did it throughout the whole book since there was so much going on. I liked how all of the story lines ended up coming together. The back and forth between the present and the days leading up to the death in different people’s perspectives helped to build the character development. I liked the twist ending. It was tough at first with the Welch sprinkled in and not knowing how to pronounce the names, but once I got used to it, it made it feel more authentic and help build the divide between the Welch town and the English folks that made residence at The Shores.

The only reason this is not a 5 star book for me is that there were so many characters and plot lines going on and some of the red herrings were a little much. I will definitely be reading any other books by her in this series – it looks like there will be a second book based on digging on Goodreads!

Complete Book Summary with Spoilers (PART 1)

The book starts out with Ffion waking up on New Years Day next to a man that she met at a bar the night before. As she sneaks out, she tries to remember his name – Marcus.

‘She hates it when she can’t remember their names. It feels…. slutty.’

When she arrives home, she chats with her mom and sister and finds out that a man was found floating in the lake for the New Year’s Day swim.

The book the transfers over to Leo Brady’s point of view. He is a Detective Constable for Cheshire Major Crimes Unit. He is off to identify the body that has washed up. It is believed to be a missing person that was reported from The Shore, Rhys Lloyd.

On his drive over, he calls his ex-wife to talk to his son and wish him a happy new year. She eludes to an incident that she could turn him over to social services. Upon arriving at the morgue, he sees a woman ‘Harriet’ that he had a one night stand with. It turns out the ‘Harriet’ is Ffion and Lloyd is ‘Marcus’, from the first chapter. Izzy Weaver, the pathologist at the morgue, shows them the body and they confirm is is Rhys. Ffion and Leo head over to The Shore, a fancy property owned by Rhys, to inform his family he has been found. When they arrive, Ffion tells Leo the backstory of the property and why it is not viewed highly by the locals. Leo and Ffion break the news to Rhys’ wife, daughters and mother that he has been found dead and need someone to make an identification.

Leo and Ffion take to interviewing the residents of The Shore. They don’t get anything useful about Rhys’ evening. Ffion goes to watch the CCTV of the entrance to the Shores – and deletes it, leaving us wondering why.

We then flash back to New Years Eve, 10pm, and in Rhys point of view. He is feeling very intoxicated and wants the party to be over. The chapter ends with him throwing up and promising to be a better man.

Flash forward to Ffion, January 2. She is telling her mother she can’t let her mom know anything about the case. She heads out of the house when Glinys calls – she is being harassed by reporters. Ffion tricks the reporters to go on a difficult trek, then heads to talk to the boat house owner, Steff Edwards, with Leo. We find out the Steff really hated Rhys and that the current would not have taken his body from The Shores to where he was found. They head back to The Shores for some more investigating. They get more information on the party that happened.

The next day, Leo looks into the stalking and threats that Rhys filed complaints about. His ex wife Allie shows up to tell him she is moving to Australia with her boyfriend and taking Harris with. We find out that Leo left Harris alone and he was scared – that’s what Allie is holding over his head.

Back at the morgue, Izzy is narrowing down the cause of death. It appears he was tied and weighted with ropes to keep him under water. He was dead before going in the water.

Flashback to New Years Eve. 9pm – Jontys point of view. He has an altercation with Steff Edwards and pushes him out of the party. Then he joins Ashleigh to snort Coke in the bathroom. He runs into Rhys, who is inebriated and it seems like the two aren’t on the best of terms. Rhys blames Jonty for his life falling apart.

Back in the present – Leo and Ffion are at Leo’s workplace for breifings. Leo’s boss keeps saying mean things about Leo. The tech report comes back from Rhys Apple Watch saying his heart rate stopped just before midnight and that hours before, his heart rate had spiked (wait – can they actually get that data that quickly?). They are looking into elim fingerprints and Caleb Northcote, Jonty and Ffion’s sister all refused to give theirs. Ffion and Leo head to get dinner to look over instagram pictures from the night and notice that Bobby has his fingers intertwined with someone’s in the background of a picture. They notice there is an award missing in Rhys’ office.

Flackback to New Year’s Eve and Ffion’s friend Mia. We find out she was a cleaner for The Shore. She is helping with the party, acting as a waitress. She is having an affair with someone and hoping to make time with them that evening. She runs into Huw (who we later find out is Ffion’s ex husband) coming in from the pontoon and trying to find Rhys. The chapter ends with Mia’s hatred towards Ashleigh.

January 4 – Ffion runs into Mia and they get into a little spat. She says she is covering up from Mia. Ffion and Leo head to The Lodge and inspect the medicine cabinet of Rhys and check out the missing award. They head to Glynis’ house and the twins and Yasmin are also there. They show Yasmin the medicine list and she seems to react to it. We find out there was an incident in his high school years where he was bullying a classmate, Ceri – who is now the postwoman. She ended up trying to overdose because of it. They then head to interrogate Jonty again about the business. The lodges were harder to sell than originally planned. They had to lower the price. They also had to lay off multiple workers and ended up hiring in Huw Ellis to finish the job and owe him 30k. Jonty holds 49% stake while Roy had 51% – at his death, 2% moved over to Jonty to make them the main share holder. Leo runs into Seren and asks her to give her fingerprints – she says she was never asked, even though Ffion said she refused.

New Year’s Eve, mid-day, Yasmin. Yasmin sees Rhys talking to someone in a car – the car leaves and he is sobbing. She tells him they are over and she is leaving him

Ffion goes to visit Huw (we find out that he is her ex!!) and asks him about being at the party. He still has the keys to The Shores since they haven’t paid him the 30k. Ffion starts looking to Number 36 – assuming it is a ‘club’ that Rhys had frequented, but it has not digital footprint. Leo goes to visit Allie and she tells him she is leaving for Australia with Harris and that Leo is a bad dad – while Leo had been taking Harris back to Allie he had seen a wanted pedophile at a bus stop. Leo decided to call it in.

At the morgue – the pathologist informs them that there was no drugs in his system and that he didn’t have a lot of alcohol either. The cut on his face wouldn’t have killed him either, but might have been enough to trigger the heart attack he ended up having that killed him. Her coworker Elijah mentions toxins that might have brought on the same symptoms. Leo and Ffion find out that the Club 36 is a brothel as they get an alert that they have find out that Yasmin Lloyd was the stalker.

December 27, Ceri. Rhys previously had tricked Ceri into bringing the mail up into his office while he is near naked on the bed. Now he gives invitations to her to deliver (for free) to ‘high class’ locals. She ends up bringing the invites to the pub and make it a free invite to all the locals instead of the high class ones that Rhys had intended to invite

Ffion and Leo are back at The Shore. Leo gets CCTV from Bobby’s door cam. They go and arrest Yasmin. Back at the station, they find out that Rhys had put a woman in the hospital at the brothel, Number 36, with taking things too roughly. We find out that Yasmin lied about the woman coming to their house in London and that she enjoyed sending the stalker messages to Rhys to make him feel squirmy. Rhys life insurance policy is worth 1.5 million dollars. It also comes out that Yasmin is having an affair with Johnty. Leo and Ffion found a burner phone and read the inappropriate texts between them. Leo gets a call from Elijah that he took some samples home and found ricin in the sample, which is a poison that can be easily grown in North Whales. Leo also sees Ffion’s car on the CCTV that Bobby gave him in the half hour span the that had been deleted on the other source. He also finds out that Huw, a main suspect, was her ex husband. Yasmin has an alibi for when Rhys died – she was singing for the group.

Christmas Day. Clemmie. They do the Christmas Day swim. After, when she is feeling happy, Rhys confronts her and tells her she needs to pay the balance (400k!) on her lodge.

Leo and Ffion head to The Shores, they find out Johnty was doing coke with Ashleigh all night and had an alibi for the murder time. They also tell Blythe that Johnty and Yasmin were having an affair. Caleb is Ashleigh’s dealer.

Christmas Eve. Blythe. Dinner with the Lloyds and the Charltons. Blythe sends Johnty to put the kids to bed with his magic touch. She suspects that Johnty is having an affair – she goes looking for evidence and finds crushed up powder.

Ffion and Leo head to talk to Angharad. Her boat is in the shop, it was dropped off the day after New Years.

October before. Rhys. They get to the Shore for mid-term break. No one is happy to be there. He sees Mia cleaning in Bobby’s lodge and makes a move on her – from his point of view, she really wants it. They are interrupted by something. Later, Clemmie goes to take a swim but needs to get rescued by Angharad, who says she will teach her and Caleb how to sail. We find out that Rhys is doing poor financially and his agent Fleur has made a campaign to have Rhys send a signed photo to his fans and they take a picture of them with the autograph and post it with a hashtag to get sales stirring.

Leo finds out that Elijah has been suspended because it seems the tests he is running were compromised by other tests he has going on at his place – he has been stealing all sorts of samples to run. Leo also admits to Ffion about what happened with his son and leaving him in a locked car to capture the perp – which earned him a commendation.

Late August. Rhys. Steffan brings over a rowboat that was hand made for the the twins in exchange for a boat rental program for residents. He hires Seren to help with his fan mail.

Ffion take Leo to her house to get Seren’s old things to give to Leo to get his apartment suitable for Harris to live with him. After he has gotten the room set up, he reaches out to a lawyer to start the process to keep his son from moving out of the country with his ex. He then scans Rhys’ phone records and finds that Rhys had called Ffion on New Year’s Eve.

Mid-August. Seren. Seren has been watching Tabby and Felicia and Caleb all summer. Caleb catches up to her in the woods and they start to hang out.

“She watches them for a bit. Clemmie is not bendy. Seren sympathizes. They did yoga in PE, and Seren spent the whole time trying not to fart.”

Ffion goes to the lake for a freezing swim to get her mind cleared. Leo goes to talk to her.. he finds out that Seren is Rhys Lloyd’s daughter with Ffion and not actually her sister.

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Complete Book Summary with Spoilers (PART 2)

Late July. Rhys & Yasmin. The Lloyds and Charlestons are moved into their lodges and awaiting the other residents to arrive. Dee Huxley is the first to arrive. Johnty helps her to her lodge. Then the Staffords arrive. Mia is there to help with a surprise for Ashleigh, Bobby had called to have her help set it up. Clemence and Caleb are next. Yasmin notices that Dee is staring at Rhys with hatred. Dee was the owner of Number 36 and knows what Rhys had done to her worker.

Leo is comforting Ffion as she tells him about the encounter with Rhys when she was 14 and he was about 30. He had been helping at a school function and ended up taking her back to his mom’s place. Ffion had a reputation for being wild, but it was all made up. She finally realizes it wasn’t her fault.

Mid-August. Caleb. Rhys knees Caleb in the man area and tells him to leave his daughters alone

As Ffion is finishing telling Leo the story, some kids catch the murder weapon while fishing.

Late August. Steffan. Steffan’s business is failing. He makes a whole business plan to save his shop by renting out things to The Shore residents. He makes a rowboat for the twins to get in Rhys good graces and delivers it, assuming he has the business.

October. Mia. Mia is cleaning Glynis’s house and she is looking for some files. She take the pictures from when they were in high school that Glynis found. Mia is exchanging messages with Bobby – they are in love. She then goes to visit Huw to get keys from him to get into The Shores but he can’t find them. She goes to tidy up Bobby’s place and Rhys comes in and tries to make a move on her. He won’t let her say no. Thankfully, Dee sees it happening and frightens Rhys away. She consoles Mia.

Leo finally stands up to Crouch and tells him his jokes aren’t funny. The prints come back from the trophy and Ceri’s are on there. They go to confront her and bring her in for questioning. She is let out on bail.

Christmas Eve. Felicia. Felicia knows that her mom is having an affair with Johnty. She also knows that Seren is dressing nicely for Rhys. She is mad they go to the Charlton’s for Christmas Eve. Tabby and Felicia head out to the pub to drink with Seren, but are only allowed two drinks so they head back early. As they walk back, they overhear Yasmin and Rhys arguing – Rhys had been drugging Felicia with sleeping pills the first 3 years of her life to get her to sleep. He taught Johnty to do the same with his kids.

Seren calls Ffion to yell at her and tell her she found out that she is her mom. They also find out that Rhys had texted Seren to “wear the dress” in a flirtatious way.

Christmas Eve. Bobby. They get to The Shores early Christmas morning and Ashleigh is upset because she wants to be somewhere more Instagramable. Ashleigh gets mad about Bobby not wanting to take pictures and pose for Instagram. She storms off. Bobby confronts Rhys about trying to make a move on Mia.

Leo and Ffion go looking for Seren. She is no where to be found but then turns out she went to Stefan’s boat shop and took Angharad’s boat – which had a hole in the hull.

December 27. Steffan. Steffan finds out that Rhys was never going to give him the business and was setting up a sports shop at The Shore. Steffan had put a lot of money into his boat shop in preparation to get more business. Steffan is ruined. He starts drinking again

New Year’s Eve. 11:45am. Yasmin tells Rhys she wants a divorce. He sends a text to Seren to ‘wear the dress’ meaning a short, slutty dress. He runs into Dee and she hints about Rhys’ triplets and that Seren looks so much like his twins. He realizes that Seren might be his daughter with Ffion. He tries to call her and she hangs up. He starts going through is fan mail to pass time and to calm down. He gets a paper cut on his tongue from one of the letters. Ffion shows up and freaks out on Rhys to make sure no one can find out about Seren.

New Year’s Eve. Seren. Seren goes to the party, she bums a ride with Huw. She is wearing her super short dress. Her mom thinks she is going out with her friends. She runs into Mia, Mia is worried for her. Caleb asks her out but realizes she likes Rhys. Seren goes to Clemmie’s lodge to talk to the twins and Caleb and let the twins know they need to bring their dad a sandwich to eat, per their mom’s request. She gets upset because Rhys won’t pay attention to her.

Ffion and Leo save Seren. There is blood on the life jacket but Seren isn’t bleeding. While Seren is in the hospital (she wants nothing to do with Ffion), Leo and Ffion go to Angharad’s to figure out about the blood on the life jacket. She says that someone must have taken her boat because she realized that the life jacket had been moved and she never wears it. Leo all of a sudden knows who dumped his body in the lake.

New Year’s Eve. Glynis. Glynis knows that Rhys took his father, in a state of dementia, to a lawyer to sign the land over to Rhys. His dad, Jac, would never have wanted that. Glynis needs to find the old will. She goes to Rhys office and unlocks the dresser that was there from Jac’s old shed. The will is there. When Rhys comes in, she hits him in the face with the trophy. Clemmie. Clemmie comes in and sees that Glynis has taken out Rhys. She convinces Glynis they will need to get rid of the body in the lake or they will go to prison… when Clemmie feels for his pulse, it is still there but weak. She lies because she wants him dead so she won’t have to pay him for the lodge.

Ffion and Leo check out Angharad’s alibi with Ffion’s mom and it checks out. They head to The Shore and Bobby and Ashleigh have broken up, she left him. He is with Mia. They go to arrest Clemmie. She admits that she swam and got the boat and then took his body and drops him in the lake. Ffion confronts Glynis as well and arrests her. Glynis is adamant that Clemmie HAD to help her. Glynis knew that Rhys had raped Ffion when she was 14, she saw it, and didn’t say anything about it.

Back at the station, Allie confronts Leo about the lawsuit he is taking against her for custody over Harris. Leo calls Izzy Weaver and she remains adamant that the blow to the face wasn’t what killed Rhys, he had started feeling sick prior. The blow to the face was what would have put him over the edge. Crouch congratulates them on a job well done.

Fast forward to June. Ffion is still working and finding justice for other cases. She finally realizes that her dad would have been proud of her. Seren meets her to finally talk to her and work on fixing their relationship. Seren is dating Caleb. Ffion meets up with Huw and he asks her to come home. She finally feels like it might be a possibility.

Leo has Harris at his place, he is working on buying a home. He gets Harris on Wednesday’s and every other weekend. Ffion officially moves in with her mom. While she is trying to find a place to store her books, she find incriminating evidence against her mom in the shed. There is a DNA test from November that Rhys is the father of Seren. There is also a bottle of ricin. Elen had put the ricin on an envelope and mailed it to Rhys to get an autographed picture. He was poisoned when he licked the envelope.

Ffion covers it up by putting the evidence in the lake.

WAIT. WHAT?! What if Rhys hadn’t been the one licking it?! What if it had been Seren as the personal assistant?!?!

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Spoilers

*SPOILERS – Do NOT expand this section unless you want to know the spoilers!*

Yasmin was the stalker. Seren is actually Ffion’s daughter – Ffion was raped by Rhys when she was 14 and got pregnant. Glynis is the one that hit Rhys in the face with the trophy, Clemmie helped drop him in the lake even though he wasn’t actually dead.. it helped her to get out of the payment plan with him. The end, Ffion finds a bag in the shed at her mom’s house that has the ricin poison. She had poisoned Rhys when she found out that he had fathered Seren with a DNA test. Ffion dumps it in the lake and weighs it down so it won’t be found.