LoveReading Says
LoveReading Says
This stimulating and lively (yes lively, even with all the deaths) crime novel hits all of the right notes. While The Last Word is a standalone murder mystery, it features a lot of the characters from The Postscript Murders which was shortlisted for the Crime Writers’ Association Gold Dagger Award. It also includes the now Met based Detective Inspector, Harbinder Kaur, who appears in her own set of mysteries. Bestselling and prizewinning author Elly Griffiths has set this several years after the first, Natalka and Edwin are running a detective agency and find themselves involved in a case where writers and authors are being targeted. I absolutely love the connection within these two novels to the book world, it’s fascinating and incredibly entertaining. It is all rather clever, and beautifully balanced between the crime-solving private investigators, the police, and writers. Each chapter focuses on one of the characters, it really allows you to settle in while seeing events from a broad perspective. Edwin has to be a favourite of mine, this self-confessed oldest sleuth in the country adds an elegant flair to proceedings. The coastal location in Sussex just sings, and the writers' retreat is appropriately foreboding. I thoroughly enjoyed the standalone setting and timing of this novel that continues the stories of Natalka, Edwin, and Benedict, so just had to include it as a LoveReading Star Book. The Last Word is a gloriously fiendish and refreshing yet warming novel I can wholeheartedly recommend.
Liz Robinson
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The Last Word Synopsis
A cosy, twisty, standalone mystery that reintroduces the glorious characters we met in the bestselling The Postscript Murders - shortlisted for the Gold Dagger.
Natalka and Edwin, whom we met in The Postscript Murders, are running a detective agency in Shoreham, Sussex. Despite a steady stream of minor cases, Natalka is frustrated, longing for a big juicy case such as murder to come the agency's way. Natalka is now living with dreamer, Benedict. But her Ukrainian mother Valentyna has joined them from her war-torn country and three's a crowd. It's annoying to have Valentyna in the tiny flat, cooking borscht and cleaning things that are already clean. To add to Natalka's irritation, Benedict and her mother get on brilliantly.
Then a murder case turns up. Local writer, Melody Chambers, is found dead and her family are convinced it is murder. Edwin, a big fan of the obit pages, thinks there's a link to the writer of Melody's obituary who pre-deceased his subject.
The trail leads Benedict and Edwin to a slightly sinister writers' retreat. When another writer is found dead, Edwin thinks that the clue lies in the words.
Seeking professional help, the amateur investigators turn to their friend, detective Harbinder Kaur, to find that they have stumbled on a plot that is stranger than fiction.
About This Edition
| ISBN: |
9781529433432 |
| Publication date: |
30th January 2024 |
| Author: |
Elly Griffiths |
| Publisher: |
Quercus Publishing |
| Format: |
Hardback |
| Pagination: |
338 pages |
| Primary Genre |
Crime and Mystery
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| Other Genres: |
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| Recommendations: |
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Author
About Elly Griffiths
Elly Griffiths is the bestselling author of the Dr Ruth Galloway Mysteries and the Brighton Mysteries. She has won the CWA Dagger in the Library, has been shortlisted six times for the Theakston's Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year, and longlisted for the CWA Gold Dagger for The Lantern Men. Her series featuring Detective Harbinder Kaur began with The Stranger Diaries, which won the Edgar Award for Best Novel in the USA. It was followed by The Postscript Murders, shortlisted for the CWA Gold Dagger and Bleeding Heart Yard. Elly has two grown-up children and lives near Brighton with her archaeologist husband and their cat, Pip.
Below is a Q & A with this author.
If you were stranded on a desert island and could take one crime novel, one DVD boxset and one character from a crime novel, who/what would you take?
This is the sort of question I spend a lot of time debating when I should be working! My desert island book is usually The Mating Season by PG Wodehouse as I think that would cheer me up (unlike Ruth I don’t like solitude). But crime novel? It would have to be The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins. DVD boxset would be The Office (US version) and the character would be Charles Paris from Simon Brett’s novels as at least we’d have a laugh – and a drink.
Photo Credit: Sara Reeve
Who would you invite to your dream dinner party and what would be on the menu?
I’d invite Clive Stafford-Smith, Marcus Brigstocke, Bruce Springsteen, Germaine Greer and Jilly Cooper. We’d eat Italian food ideally cooked by my late Nonna (it is a dream after all).
What is your favourite line from a film/TV series/book?
It’s a few lines but Flora Poste’s telegram in Cold Comfort Farm. ‘Worst fears realised darling. Seth and Reuben too. Send gumboots.’
If you could write a book with any other crime or thriller writer, who would you choose and why?
I’d have great fun with Lesley Thomson, David Harrison (Tom Bale), Jim Kelly or Alison Bruce. Alison, Jim and I have talked about our fictional detectives meeting as our books are all set in the Cambridge/King’s Lynn area. They’d probably all hate each other too which would make for a fun read.
Who is your favourite onscreen detective?
I really like Jackson Brodie (Jason Isaacs) but my favourite is probably still David Suchet as Poirot.
If your book was being made into a film or a TV series, who would you want to play the lead character?
Ruth Jones or Eva Myles. She’d have to become Welsh but it would be worth it.
What crime novel do you wish you had written?
The Woman in White.
What’s the scariest place you’ve visited for inspiration?
The prison chapel in Lincoln Castle.
You are master of cluedo and have any name, weapon and room at your disposal, whodunit and what happened?
It would have to be the Reverend Green as I do like a theological thriller. Reverend Green (who’s a woman) in the library with the bible.
More About Elly Griffiths
