3⭐️

I just never really understood this book. I thought the concept was super intriguing, however it just failed to deliver. There was a lot going on and you really had to pay attention to not get lost in the story.

I think there is an audience for this book and I really think some people will love it.

This is so unlike most of the books I read and I really did not know what to expect. I was immediately drawn in and wanted to know more about everything. While the ending included a little too much “telling” how and why some things happened, I enjoyed this sci-fi mystery!

Set in a future where a mysterious fog wiped out nearly the entire population, this is a sci-fi heavy murder mystery about the one surviving island and what happens when an important member of the community turns up dead. This author has big brain energy and his books are always confusing, just usually in amore fun way. I was inhaling the majority of the book, then the last 30% didn’t stick the landing for me. Still fun and totally original.

3.5⭐️
This book is definitely different!
Set in an isolated location in the future post apocalyptic. A fog has covered earth but a small Greek island is safe and 122 people live here along with three leaders who are called the elders. This story is also told in the POV of an AI security system, Abi, that speaks in their minds. Abi also knows all the answers but you won’t get them from her.
Most of the villagers are happy and content with serving the elders without asking questions. But Emory has many questions. After an elder is murdered and their memories are wiped by Abi, Emory must find out who the killer is before the fog kills them all.

Stuart Turton’s books are high concept mysteries that encourage close reading and the expectation of being wrong in your conclusion. Turton’s third book, The Last Murder at the End of the World sets the murder mystery in a dystopian future where the worst has already happened. Aside from a small Greek island, it is not known if anyone else in the world still lives. 90 years ago a deadly fog spread across the Earth that kills any life that falls within it.

The fog had been previously kept at bay thanks to the work of a scientist, Niema, but now she has been murdered right before she promised to come clean and reveal all. Unless the village rebel, Emory can solve the murder they all will die.

What follows are brief episodic chapters as the investigation plays out, what has greatly complicated matters is an artificial intelligence that helps monitor and maintain life on the island. The deadline begins with 48hours.

There is a caste system, villagers who maintain the island and grow the food and only live to 60, with theirs days controlled with a set curfew of forced unconsciousness. They are overseen by three elders who all are highly intelligent and capable. It is in everyone’s thoughts where nothing can be hidden. And before the scientist died, they ordered everyone’s memoirs erased.

Emory must reconstruct the movements of the villagers and elders who lived on the island with no memories to guide them. Thanks to a caste system some assumptions can be made, but still there is a ticking clock and the challenges of trust and tradition to overcome. At the center of the book is what makes a life valuable? What would you sacrifice for the greater good?

Recommended to mystery readers who like the puzzles to cross genre lines.

A catastrophic event has destroyed the world except for a small island with a few hundred inhabitants.

The Last Murder at the End of World is a complex sci-fi mystery. This slow-burn story contains intense characters and storyline. At times, I found myself lost and uninterested in what was happening, begging the fog to end the story.

Enjoyed the author's previous works better than this read!

Thank you, Sourcebooks Landmark

Enjoyable read of a different kind. A group of survivors from a deadly fog that is killing everything in it’s path. So far they have survived on an island with an AI type of thought process controlling their behavior. Characters are put to sleep at night but it appears that they are doing jobs in a hypnotic state, with no memory of this upon waking. Great for middle grade and up.

Set sometime in the future, a mysterious fog has covered the world killing everyone except the last 122 people on an island. When an elder turns up murdered, one of the main characters, Emory, searches for the killer. In the process she finds the lives they’ve been living aren’t what they thought. I honestly can’t decide if I liked this book or not. The author’s writing kept me interested, so I kept going back to it. I think what I didn’t enjoy was the voice in people’s heads that was partially narrating the story. It took me some time to get into the groove of who was “talking”. It seemed sometimes Abi, the voice, answered and other times she didn’t. The randomness of Abi coming & going throughout the story was a little confusing. Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for this advanced reader’s copy.

It’s hard to decide what to rate The Last Murder at the End of the World. It was a good book and it was not confusing, and it had a really interesting premise that I feel was done well. For me though, I never could get into it very deeply. It felt lacking for me with the characters and I never really connected with the story. With it not working very well for me, I am putting it at 3 stars, though I feel lots of people will really enjoy this and it’s probably more like a 3.5.

Note: ARC provided by the publisher via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

DNF. I tried with this book. I read 30% and could NOT get into it. It reminded me of a book I just read called Termush by Sven Holm but that was about as much as I could muster. I really wanted to like this book but I guess its just not for me. I don't think it would be right to give it a star rating as I didn't finish it.

BUT I just tried to submit without rating so I am giving it a 2.

Thanks to NetGalley and Sourcebooks Landmark for sending me an ARC of The Last Murder at the End of the World in exchange for an honest review.

At least 100 years from now, Earth is completely covered by a fog that somehow kills everyone it touches. Completely covered, that is, except for a tiny Greek island where this novel takes place. On that island, there are three elders and exactly 122 villagers, who live lives of honest work and simple pleasures. But nothing on the island is really as it seems. And when someone is found murdered, it starts a countdown on the island’s security system (there are reasons), and the villagers only have 107 to solve the murder before the fog rolls in and kills them all. And as if that weren’t challenging enough, all of their memories of the night of the murder have disappeared….

The Last Murder at the End of the World is a solid story with lots of interesting world-building. I liked several of the characters, especially the narrator Abi and fish out-of-water Emory. As with The Seven 1/2 Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle, it is intricately plotted, and the book builds nicely to a series of final reveals that are surprising and largely unguessable. But as with Mr. Turton’s earlier novel, the elaborate world-building and intricate plotting are a bit of a double-edged sword. So many of the mysteries and plot points ultimately turn on aspects of various pieces of future technology. The impossibility of it all was not entirely satisfying.

The further I got into The Last Murder at the End of the World, the faster I read it, wanting to understand what was happening. The story does draw you in. Recommended for anyone who enjoys a strong mystery-science fiction hybrid. 3.5 stars rounded up to 4.

I received an eARC of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

This book started off with intrigue, but backed off quickly to give the basics of the world. That made it a little slower in the beginning, but not for long because you already had the draw from page one that made you want to know how we got there. I like the idea that we start off knowing the potential end of the book. The beginning of the book is told from a seemingly omniscient point of view between the elder in charge of the village and the symbiont in her head. There is a decent size cast of characters in this book, but the only part that sometimes would confuse me is when the symbiont would randomly interject. Sometimes I would have to take a second and realize who was talking or what for that matter. This was a very thrilling mystery with lots of danger and secrets all while a looming threat is literally on the horizon. I figured out one of the twists at the end, but not the other so I appreciated that there were a few twists at the end as opposed to one big reveal. If you liked the 7 1/2 deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle I think you will like this book.

It’s very hard to review this book as I couldn’t finish it. It was hard to read. The names were difficult to pronounce. I wasn’t fully engaged with this book.

Though not my typical genre, I loved The Last Murder at the End of the World by Stuart Turton!  In this thriller meets dystopian world, readers will find an unlikely whodunnit. What's left of humanity is rocked to their core when their leader is seemingly murdered by on of their own.  Secrets are revealed and nothing is what  it seems.

Click here to check out the book today.

The Last Murder at the End of the World by Stuart Turton

This is an interesting and interestingly spun yarn. I enjoyed my time with the story and thought about it when not reading. A variety of mysteries rolled into one, I was intrigued on several levels and wanted to know what was happening and going to happen next.

Several (nice) developments occurred over the course of the tale that I wasn't expecting.. Even the sections were titled in an interesting fashion that inspired interest.

I enjoyed the world that the author crafted and grew attached to several characters. When the yarn stopped spinning, the story was concluded with a satisfying, if bittersweet, close.

Note: The sole con I experienced wasn't with the story itself, but with the editing - especially towards the end of the book. However, I read the book prior to publication and the errors may have been corrected. As such, this con did not impact the rating.

Overall rating: 4/5 stars

#NetGalley

This was definitely a strange book. Now since I read The 7 1/2 Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle I was expecting this book to be strange. This author has a way of writing where there are times I am not sure I am enjoying it and then suddenly I can’t put the book down no matter what. This book takes place beyond the end of civilization on a remote island. The island, and rest of the world, are surrounded in a fog that kills anyone who gets into it. The islands residents are protected by a boundary. The main narrator is an all knowing AI that can read the minds of the villagers as well as speak to them and exert influence. While the people on the island have all lived in peace for a long time there has been a murder and if the residents, who are completely unfamiliar with crime, don’t figure out who did it all of humanity will be ended. This book is a mystery but quite a unique one. I liked the amateur detective and she was by far my favorite character. I enjoyed this one over all and I feel like it will be one that sticks with me as I keep slowly digesting and processing what I read.

A dark fog has destroyed the world, but is kept at bay around this island by special emitters. The villagers live peacefully, doing what the elders tell them to… until they wake one morning to find one of the elders murdered, their memories wiped, and the fog creeping closer. The murder must be solved or the fog will smother the island, and everyone on it…

This sci-fi/dystopian, murder mystery was intriguing from the start, a thin band of tension consistently pushing me to keep reading. As the story shifted POVs among several members of the village, questions and mysteries piled up.

I loved Emory’s curious nature, thought to be a deficiency in a community where everyone is just supposed to blindly follow the elders. I enjoyed seeing her relationship with her daughter and her father evolve as they worked together to solve the murder.

One downside was there wasn’t a lot of emotional depth or variety of voice for the different characters because the narrator is an omniscient A.I. named Abi (that occasionally uses first-person for itself).

Through several twists and turns, this story kept me guessing and had an unexpected but satisfying conclusion.

Thanks to NetGalley and Sourcebooks Landmark for the ARC.

First thank you to source books/landmark and NetGalley for the advanced readers copy in exchange for an honest review.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Synopsis: a murder of a scientist has occurred on a small island and the mystery must be solved before a fog kills everyone.

What I liked: this story had such a unique premise and liked the intersection of humanity, science and technology. It really gives you the reader a lot to think about. I don’t want to give away anything but this book had some things that I agreed with and others maybe not as much. Emory is the main female character and is charged with figuring out the mystery in time. She is given this job because she has always questioned things and people. That proves to be very valuable in trying to figure out the mystery in time. She is assisted by her father and daughter which adds another layer to the time crunch. This book also has an AI component to it which was interesting since I work in tech and everything is about AI. It did take you down paths where you thought you might have solved the mystery but then quickly found out you were wrong. I like that in a mystery. Overall I would recommend this book but would advise giving yourself time to read and focus on it. There are lots of nuances that could be missed if you rush through it.

I tried really hard to enjoy this one, I promise I did. Dystopian fiction/sci-fi is NOT my jam in general, but I thought I'd like this one more as I've really enjoyed Turton's previous books. But I should have known better - I DNF'd it.

More than likely it was me and not the book. However, I do think the blurb on netgalley could be a lot more upfront about just how different from his other work this one is.

Man, Turton knows how to write the weirdest, most creative shit and I’m here for it.

I loved The 7 1/2 Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle—it was an early bookstagram-made-me-do-it read shortly after creating my page—but I haven’t read anything by him since.

As with Evelyn, it definitely won’t be for everyone. But there are so many elements to which different readers will be drawn: sci-fi; post-apocalyptic dystopia; murder mystery and suspense; and some shocking twists and turns.

For fear of spoiling anything, you should go into this one as blind as possible. Just buckle up and prepare to unravel the island’s mysteries!