New Years Day in the small Welsh lake side town of Cwm Coed starts like any others. All the locals are off for a swim until a dead body is found. Who is none other then local child prodigy Rhys Lloyd, who’s taking up across the lake creating an English vacation rental community.

This was such a great who done it, everyone is a suspect and everyone (and I mean absolutely everyone) has motive.

I found myself giving up trying to figure out who was responsible and embracing and enjoy the story, it was such an easy read and pulled me in right from the start. It literally had me guessing until the very last page.

When I found out the author was writing Ffion in a second story I was weary not sure if I’d feel invested enough for a second story but now I can’t wait to get my hands on more of Ffion’s story

I am a fan of Clare MacKintosh and this book was just as exciting as others I have read. It's a murder mystery set in Wales and had many twists and surprises I wasn't expecting as a reader. Some of the Wales language was challenging for me at times, but didn't distract form the suspenseful story. This was a fun ride.

When I read crime fiction, I can usually see the plot structure as I read along. With a police procedural, I tend to see the plot working as a sort of flow chart. Now, this book is technically a police procedural, since its main characters are police detectives, but it doesn’t follow the usual pattern of its sub-genre. Instead, it’s more of a peeling-the-onion structure. With each chapter, a layer comes away, revealing secrets from the past. It’s the past, not so much forensics, that will reveal who killed Rhys Lloyd, and why.

Mackintosh is terrific at making her characters fully dimensional and her setting feel real. It’s easy to picture every bit of this story as you read, because of Mackintosh’s skills. It’s a gripping tale, with loads of twists and turns, and even one last surprise after you think it’s all wrapped up. I’ve never read Mackintosh before, but I’ll be seeking out her prior books—and especially looking forward to the next Ffion Morgan book she says she’s writing.

Good characters and plot, but this was frustrating to read. There’s no pronunciation guide, so for those not familiar with the Welsh language, a lot of the names of people and places are gobbledygook. This wouldn’t be as big of a deal if it weren’t for the fact that the other makes references to the name that the reader wouldn’t understand unless they translated every Welsh term they came across (like Dragon Mountain in the prologue)

I love love love love a final-moments plot twist, and Clare never disappoints. Thinking you’ve got it all figured out and then finding out you don’t? And then finding out you STILL don’t? I can’t get enough. This book kept me continuously guessing even up until the end. As a major thriller/mystery/etc reader, it’s hard to have a plot twist that genuinely surprises me. And yet Clare has repeatedly.

Can’t wait for this one to come out so I can get a physical copy!

I loved this novel. How do you solve a murder when practically everyone is a suspect given the extensive unpopularity of the victim? Great story, love the main character, interesting setting.

I had a hard time connecting with The Last Party. It was a little more police procedural than I was expecting!

Stars: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

PUBLICATION DAY: November 8, 2022

Rhys Lloyd is dead, washed up on a Northern Wales shore…or is it England? Ffion, a police officer from Wales, must work with Leo, her English counterpart to solve the mystery of this death…or was it murder? With a dubious start to their relationship, the two stop at nothing to uncover what happened. But is Ffion sharing all she knows? And what will she do to protect those she loves?

PROS and CONS:
So, so, so good!!! Alternating between the present day investigation with Ffion (love her!) and Leo (love him!) and trips to the past with various characters involved with the victim, and at various times as well. Sounds confusing…but it’s not. It’s awesome and I loved it. So many suspects, compelling side plots, gorgeous descriptive settings, character development….I could go on. Mackintosh has a winner with this one.

READ IT?
If you’re looking for…a well written mystery with amazing characters set in a perfect location, then this one’s for you!

5 Stars

This mystery takes place in Wales, and the sense of place is strong. There is a death at a resort community, and the investigations and follow up is most of the story. There is conflict between the townspeople and the resort, and not a lot of trust with anyone. A major plotline is the two investigators, from different police branches. #thelastparty #claremackintosh #bookstagram #booklover #bookreview #bookrecommendations #reader #booksbooksbooks #readallthebooks #bookblog #readersofinstagram #bookloversofinstagram #bookreviewsofinstagram #takeapagefrommybook

The Last Party was just okay for me. It felt so slow and I had a hard time keeping track of all the different characters at first. The pace picked up in the second half and I enjoyed it a little more, but I just never felt really engaged, and I didn't really care about any of the characters. Police Procedurals aren't really my favorite anyway so I think this just wasn't for me.

Thanks Sourcebooks Landmark and NetGalley for the electronic ARC of The Last Party in exchange for my honest review.

This was a fabulous murder mystery thriller. I really enjoyed this ride. The suspects were many and there were several twists that I did not see coming. I am excited that this will be a series!

This new first-in-a-series police procedural by Clare Mackintosh is a winner! The main character DC Ffion Morgan teams up with DC Leo Brady to investigate the murder of Rhys Lloyd, a local who was a famous singer, on New Year’s Eve at his vacation home in a small town in Wales, the town where Ffion grew up and where she currently lives and works. Despite his previous celebrity status, Lloyd is a pretty nasty man who is hated by most of people around him, making the suspect list a long one indeed.

The main characters, particularly Ffion and Leo, are complex, interesting and well-developed, and the storyline has plenty of twists, turns and red herrings to keep the reader turning the pages. My only complaint, and a minor one at that, is that I found the pace to be slower than I would have liked — even tediously slow at a few points. Nonetheless, did enjoy this quite a bit, and I look forward to reading the second in this series.

Unfortunately I was not a big fan of this one. I’ve really enjoyed other reads by Claire Mackintosh but this one did fall a bit short for me. I think part of it was that there were so many different characters and their names weren’t the easiest to follow. Another part was all the back and forth and a lot of backstory that wasn’t the most entertaining. I did find myself skimming some parts of the book but it finally picked up for me towards the end, once the reader finds out who the murderer was and the why. I recommend this read if you’re a fan of detective thrillers as the two main characters follow the detectives and their reasoning to solving the murder. Overall 3 ⭐️

A big thank you to Net Galley, Sourcebooks, and Claire Mackintosh for sending me an advanced readers copy.

Claire Mackintosh was a new author to me when I received this ARC from NetGalley. Thank you for the introduction! I loved the setting of the fictional Welsh Village of Cwm Coed (I"d love to know who to properly pronounce that!) The descriptions of the setting were very well done and I enjoyed learning about the relationship between the English and the Welsh, which I had never read about before.

The mystery is who killed a prominent member of the community, Rhys Lloyd. It took me a while to get into the book because there were so many characters introduced early on, but once I got everybody straight I really enjoyed it. They are a varied group of people, many of whom I liked a lot, including the two main characters, the investigators on the case - Ffion from Wales and Leo from England, I loved the interactions between these two and their backstories.

The story is told in alternating timelines and from different character's viewpoints, which I think worked well. There were many twists and turns and I found myself thinking that nearly everybody could be the murderer. The endng surprised me, but just when I thought it was done, there was one more twist!

On New Years Day, the body of singer Rhys Lloyd is discovered floating in the lake at The Shore, a ritzy new development near the English border in Wales. Rhys was one of the developers and there is no shortage of people who wanted to see him dead. DC Ffion Morgan of Wales finds herself partnered with Det. Leo Brady from England to investigate this high-profile case, a partnership complicated by their one-night stand of the previous evening.

I am a fan of Clare Mackintosh, having read at least four of her previous novels, but I found it was a chore to slog my way through this one. I think I felt bogged down by all the Welsh phrases and translations—it just didn’t flow for me. There were some great characters and red herrings, but this one just didn’t pull me in and I didn’t enjoy it that much. It has garnered great reviews from others, so clearly I am in the minority here.

A New Years party that will NEVER be forgotten 🥂! “The Last Party” by Clare Mackintosh is an atmospheric police procedural that investigates a lengthy guest list where EVERYONE at the party is a suspect 🎉🪩

BOOK REVIEW: 🖤🖤🖤.5/5

Singing local legend Rhys Lloyd hosts a New Years Eve party at “The Shore”, which is a community of wealthy lake houses that he has helped to develop. He decides to invite the locals to ring in the new year with the residents of The Shore and a RAGING party ensues. The next morning, Rhys is found dead floating in the lake. All the attendees state that he was drunk off his rocker and it becomes apparent that Rhys was not a well liked man at all 🙄

Everyone at the party is a possible suspect as SECRETS, LIES and DECEPTION start to surface and motives become applicable from multiple people. DC Morgan and Brady will have to find out WHO wanted him dead the most?? 👀

Thank you kindly to @bookmarked @netgalley @claremackwrites for my advanced digital copy in exchange for my honest review! This book releases November 8, 2022!

Rating: 3.5 rounded up to 4

When I first started this book I didn’t realize that the main characters were detectives, and it was about them solving the murder case together. I’m not a huge fan of detective base novels, but overall I enjoyed this one. I really enjoyed the small romance side plot which is always fun in a good thriller book!

Ffion and Leo were both really interesting characters. I loved the banter between them, and how they grew closer during the investigation. They were my favorite POVs to read. The added Welsh culture and language was fun (even thought I didn’t know what they were saying).

There was so many characters throughout this whole book, that I was constantly confused on who was who. I felt like a lot of the names blurred together, and I didn’t really care about them either. There was also so many different POVs between all the different characters that I just got more confused.

This book was also way too long in my opinion, and it got boring at some parts for sure. I felt like there was a lot of fluff in the middle with all the flashbacks to the night of New Years Eve, when the murder happened, between almost every person that was at the party.

There was still a lot of twist and turns that I didn’t see coming (multiple times), and I didn’t know who did it until the very end. The author did a really good job wrapping up the mystery in such a unique way that I still want to continue on with this series!

This psychological thriller will not disappoint, not only because Claire Mackintosh wrote it, but the characters are interesting and unique. The setting is the lakes and mountains of North Wales in a fictional Cwm Coed with vacation homes dotting the grounds known as The Shore. The locals are not impressed and the scene heats up against the developer, Rhys Lloyd.
The scene opens with Rhys confronting his own death and circumstance. The story sprouts with the past building frenemies along the way. An eye opening scene is when the local investigator, Ffion Morgan, investigates his death and has access to the security cameras and erases some of it. You know there is some type of connection between all the characters and they all appear as suspects.
Claire’s style is one of my favorites even though the first 50% is setting the scene for a long list of suspects. At one point I thought about giving it a rest but had read the reviews and knew to keeping plowing because the TWIST is worth it!
It represents the rich and famous, as well as the locals trying to figure them out. The landscape is luxurious and inviting like the New Year’s Eve party that will end it all!
Thank you NetGalley and Source Landmark for this incredible ARC for my honest review!

The Last Party grabbed me from the beginning (especially as I wasn't expecting that humorous beginning). I loved that the two investigators are not an immediate hit working together.
Rhys Lloyd hosts a New Year’s Eve party. A singer, a celebrity, a developer of vacation homes along Mirror Lake in his hometown. And by New Year’s Day, he’s also dead.
Told in a back and forth time frame, we see the murder investigation as well as the time before his death. We hear from not just the two investigators, but also many of the suspects (which is basically everyone). And the reader quickly learns that there are lots of secrets being kept, by all sorts of folks.
This is a well thought out plot that kept me engaged throughout; there were plenty of red herrings to throw me off. The two investigators are fully developed. Ffion, especially, totally took me in. As the story goes on, the pace picks up dramatically. I couldn’t turn the pages fast enough by the end. I will admit to having no clue who the murderer was.
Make sure to read the interview with the author. And the publisher has wisely included discussion questions as this would make a very interesting book club selection.
My thanks to Netgalley and Sourcebooks Landmark for an advance copy of this book.

The Last Party is the first in a new series about DC Ffion Morgan. The story centers around the mystery of who killed Rhys Lloyd a local celebrity who throws a big New Years Eve party the night before he is found dead. Fans of Hostage or atmospheric thrillers will enjoy this one.