Terrific Welsh Thriller from Clare Mackintosh, THE LAST PARTY

British author Clare Mackintosh exceeds high thriller expectations in THE LAST PARTY, a pulse-pounding investigation of the harsh effects of class and abuse that whips up an emotional storm of strong women and conflicting loyalties.

When a New Year's eve swimming event involving "everyone" from a small Welsh town results in the death of a local real estate developer, Detective Constable Ffion Morgan of the North Wales Police leaps into the investigation. But the death, soon likely to be called murder, took place in a lake that straddles the border between Wales and England, which means she'll have to work the case with Detective Constable Leo Brady of Cheshire Constabulary. And that's a huge problem: not so much because of the rivalry and resentments of that border area, but because the two DC's have met before ... for no-strings sex, both under assumed names. That's the trouble with online dating, isn't it?

But there's worse to come, because Ffion Morgan's small town is so very small that she knows almost everyone involved in the swim event, and as she and her unwanted partner begin to select suspects, some of them include people she know well ... very well. Family, even, whether by blood or by choice.

Mackintosh spins an expert high-risk investigation, with spicy inserts of lively humor. As the DCs struggle to place new names on each other, they're still spilling the earlier false names, to the confusion of the pathologist:

"Who the hell is Marcus?" the pathologist says. "I was told there were only the two of you coming—it's a morgue, not a séance."

"Sorry," Leo says on behalf of both of them, although Ffion doesn't look remotely sorry. Her expression is amused—a little quizzical—as though waiting for Leo to expand.

As Izzy Weaver ushers them into the depths of the mortuary, Leo feels a sense of misgiving come over him. He hopes to hell this turns out to be an accidental drowning, because Ffion Morgan looks like trouble.

The dead man is easily recognized as Rhys Lloyd, who owns the high-end resort on the English side of the lake and has made a fortune already in his maneuvers to bring in posh property owners. When Ffion and Leo split up the witness interviews, Leo finds Clemmie Northcote, an anomaly in the owners crowd: She and her son share a one-bedroom apartment in London where she sleeps on the couch, and she's financed her resort property through a private mortgage. "Although the others don't know I didn't buy it outright, so I'd be grateful if you'd keep that to yourself."

Leo's sympathy leads to Clemmie spilling more about the victim: "He looked down on us," she admits. "Me and Caleb. Because I don't wear the right clothes or drink the right wine. I didn't fit with his vision of The Shore." Leo notes the bitterness under her calm explanation. He hasn't yet said publicly that the death is actually murder, but Clemmie is already making a guess:

"If it were, I think you'd have your hands full."

"Why's that?"

Clemmie looks at him, her expression unguarded and resigned. "Because I've been at The Shore for six months, and I've yet to meet a single person who liked him."

Ffion too is finding disturbing currents in her part of the investigation. But the darkest of them are her own, and when the hunt for the murderer turns out to threaten her sister and even her mother, Ffion takes actions that she won't be able to admit to Leo, no matter how much she finds herself liking him. Envy and lust and abuse have flourished here—prying open the crime will reveal things that Ffion may not be able to withstand.

At a chunky 400 pages, this British crime novel takes time to unpack class, loyalty, and the desperate choices that desperate people make. Packed with a perfect balance of twists and layered revelation, it's a powerful novel well worth adding to the winter reading stack—and keeping on hand for later re-reading. Mackintosh already has five best-sellers under her belt (including last year's air highjacking drama HOSTAGE); THE LAST PARTY certainly deserves to be number six.

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Might Never Fly Again, after Clare Mackintosh's Thriller HOSTAGE

Mystery fans who read the classics (or view them in film form) have long treasured Agatha Christie's Murder on the Orient Express, where Hercule Poirot peels back the lives and motives of those riding the train with him after a passenger is killed.

Now British author Clare Mackintosh re-fits the suspense of this "closed room" situation by framing a deadly hijacking of a high-profile commercial flight. Using alternating passages that reveal the motives and means of multiple passengers, including criminals, on the flight, HOSTAGE circles around the terror felt by Mina Holbrook, adoptive mom of a preschooler named Sophia. A highly believable threat to Sophia's life forces Mina toward the kind of unforgivable action that no airline service provider should ever have to consider.

Meanwhile, Mina's husband Adam faces a very different threat: one seated in a terrible error he's made as a police detective. He's sure he's about to lose his job, and then ... "What will I do? Being a copper isn't like most other jobs—you don't do it then move on, as if you worked in a bar or tried your hand at retail. It's like teaching or being a doctor. It's part of you. And I'm going to lose it all." With that, Adam figures he'll also lose his marriage, as well as the fathering he's struggled to provide.

Short chapters and an unremitting ramping up of tension and danger make HOSTAGE a thriller that can't be put down. (What could happen to all of them—especially Sophia—if you turned away for even a moment?) The details of a bent investigator are so familiar from similar situations that the levels of threat against Adam don't seem pressing at first, but when they engage the emotionally fragile preschooler as well, every shadow seems twice as terrible. And Mina's agonized decision making, trapped among what she gradually realizes are multiple terrorists in the airline's nonstop 20-hour flight, ring an insistent alarm bell of shock, coupled with being trapped, and an inability to fight back effectively. 

Mackintosh, whose three previous thrillers have been award winners, writes fluidly with abundant drama, positioning her characters such that there's no such thing as a little courage—they've either got to give everything, or fail. HOSTAGE is a hot compelling read, earning its way into any suspense-laden summer reading stack. (Release date is JUNE 22 from Sourcebooks.) Only the final chapter pulls the book a bit beyond the believable—all the rest of it rings so true, and so frightening, that the book may well persuade some readers that it's not worth the risk to take an international flight ever again!

PS: Looking for more mystery reviews, from cozy to very dark? Browse the Kingdom Books mysteries review blog here.