Last Murder at the End of the World

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Average customer rating 3.8 (6 comments)

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What does it mean to be human? Is being human the best thing for a society? This book first starts out as a last community at the end of the world. But all is not peaceful and there are many secrets being kept from the villagers by the long lived elders/scientists from before. I really liked the first bit with the odd things like everyone dying at age 60, why is there a strict curfew which automatically puts the villagers to sleep at the same time every night but also how they wake up sometimes with bruises, scrapes, and tiredness. Those things kept me eagerly reading, especially when one scientist ends up dead suspiciously and everyone seems to have a motive for murder. The stakes are raised nicely with the lowering of the shield against the fog and man eating insects until the murderer is found. It did get a bit confusing as the story went on and it always kind of threw me when Abi would talk to someone because it was never announced, just automatically switching from third person to first for a bit. I think that could have been better. The secrets with Blackheath were also weird and how people kind of wanted the murder solved but also not and there were so many secrets kept. The murder could have been solved a lot sooner and it might have saved a few. But I did enjoy the ending.

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The book started out strong. It had a great concept behind it and I did really enjoy the story. However, it felt scattered at times. It was kind of all over the place, following too many perspectives and not making the narrator clear. It took a little bit before we finally figured out who was narrating the story. I'm not sure if that was intentional or not, but I don't think it quite worked for the story. The characters didn't do anything to make me feel a connection to them. I honestly didn't care about what ended up happening to them. The different perspectives at the beginning didn't do enough to make any of them appeal to me. Especially since we ended up following one perspective more than the others. It just felt messy to me. I feel like this book is just an okay story. There was nothing overly good about it, but it also wasn't bad in any way. It was just a story to entertain you for a little bit. I don't have strong feelings about it either way. It doesn't fit the genre stereotypes at all, the whole premise could have been leaned into to make a solid murder mystery set in a sci-fi world, but this story doesn't do either one justice.

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The Last Murder at the End of the World proves yet again that author Stuart Turton is a master at intricate plotting and mind-bending mysteries. I wouldn't consider this his strongest work, as the opening was a little slow and the story struggled to gain traction amidst the frequent POV changes, some of which were ultimately less relevant overall than others. However, once the titular murder actually happens and the wheels on the blindly grasping investigation start rolling, this book proved to be everything I've come to expect from Turton's other books. Fans of his work should definitely stick it out, as the revelations kept coming until the last page. Just when you think he's forgotten to tie up a detail or accidentally left a loophole in the plot, things slide into place yet again. The level of intricacy in the story was quite astounding - as with his other books, this is best read continuously. If you're going to have to set it down for a few days, best to wait until you can give it your full attention, because there are a lot of moving parts to keep track of.

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One of my most anticipated reads of the year! This is the latest whodunit by Stuart Turton, and I feel like people who liked his previous books will like this one, and those who didn't probably won't. It's a whodunit with speculative elements, and that's been what I've been enjoying most about Turton, the fact that he plays with the mystery genre. This time we're transported into an apocalyptic world far in the future where the last humans alive live on an island surrounded by deadly fog. The only thing keeping them alive is a defense system. Then one of the scientists in control of this system is killed, and the remaining people need to solve this murder or else the defenses will go down in just a few days.. I enjoy Turton's writing, the characters, the pacing, and the twisty narrative. I was kept on the edge of my seat and was constantly wanting to know how things would play out.

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The last remnants of humanity, after several generations, only 125 strong, live a peaceful existence on a small island that makes up the only land protected from the deadly, insect-filled fog that coated the planet and devoured the rest of humanity. Life is tranquil and idyllic for most of the inhabitants until they awake to find one of the three revered elders, Niema, and several other villagers dead and the fog rolling in. The A.I. overseer, Abi, explains that Niema's death triggered the barriers holding back the fog to drop and they can only be brought up again if Niema's murderer is found and brought to justice. The investigation is complicated as everybody's memories of the night the murder took place have been erased. It becomes increasingly clear that the mystery runs deeper than the question of who killed Niema and the villagers' society grows more ominous and dystopian the more is revealed. Abi served as the first-person narrator, but her perspective took a backseat as she focused the narration on the thoughts and feelings of the villagers whose minds she could read. This created a level of distance from all the characters, from Abi because she is purposefully hiding information and relegating herself to a background element and from the villagers because we aren't fully in their heads, it's filtered through an outside view.

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Points for creativity, but ultimately I didn't really enjoy the experience of reading this book. There was a lot going on, and I felt lost almost the whole time, and when you finally learn what's going on it just wasn't worth the lead up. It felt long and at times it was repetitive, going over the same basic suspects over and over again. But then at times it would skip ahead several hours and I would be totally lost.