The Last Party

Geez, this story is dark!

It's difficult to review this book without spoilers, so maybe skim this if you haven’t read it yet. I’ve tried my best. The simple summary is that a tragic event called the Folcrum Party murders occurred over twenty years ago when three twelve-year-old girls were attacked at a birthday party, leading to the murder conviction of the birthday girl Jenny’s father, Lee Folcrum.

Over the years, Lee has had many admirers. Unbeknownst to her family, Perla Wultz is one of them, and she’s been harboring a growing obsession with him and those long-ago events. What is her motivation? To everyone on the outside, she’s the devoted, well-to-do wife of Grant, and mom to precocious pre-teen daughter Sophie. Image is everything, right? 

All I can say is that spending time in her head is one of the scariest places I’ve been in quite awhile!

The story rotates between the perspectives of Perla, Grant, and Lee, with some journal entries from Sophie and snippets of interviews with various people who are relaying aspects of a crime that has taken place after the fact. There’s also a secondary thread with Lee and an enigmatic male grad student who keeps visiting him in prison ostensibly as part of his doctorate studies. Watching all the threads weave together to form the picture made this a riveting story!

A.R. Torre has once again shown her talent for writing a deviously twisted tale. Every major character in the story was a mystery within the bigger mystery waiting to be revealed. It had tension, intrigue, meticulous plotting and one of the coldest characters I’ve ever encountered on the page. Seriously … brrrr. Ice cold. 

My one and only reason for not being able to give it the full 5 stars is that it was simply hard for me to be in Perla’s relentlessly dark headspace at times, and being privy to what those thoughts were about only intensified that feeling. The writing is fantastic, and I still really enjoyed the story, so it’s a “me” issue and not a book issue. For those who like their psychological mystery-thrillers black as night, this should satisfy you!

★★★★ ½ 

Thanks to Thomas & Mercer, NetGalley and author A.R. Torre for this digital ARC to honestly review. It’s out now!