I think I found the answer to making sure you always enjoy ARCs: only choose those by authors you already like /jk (maybe?)

Anyway, since I’ve read Perfect Remains by Helen Fields and enjoyed it (and should really start book 2 soon) and since I’m also a sucker for things that have myths and legends in them, it’s no surprise that I requested a copy of The Last Girl to Die when I heard about it!

The Last Girl to Die takes place on the Isle of Mull, Scotland. Adriana Clark has gone missing and her family suspects that the police aren’t too enthusiastic to investigate the disappearance of an outsider, let alone a girl who is half-Hispanic. So they call in Sadie, a private investigator from Canada. Sadie quickly finds Adriana’s body and is retained to help find her killer. But the stakes grow higher when another girl is found murdered the same way Adriana is. With the islanders closing ranks against the outsiders, Sadie must work quickly to find the killer.

This story was a fast-paced and exciting one. As Sadie investigates, she learns about the legends of witches on Mull, and how they might have influenced the murder. I would have preferred a bit more folklore in the story, but since this is a thriller and it doesn’t have anything supernatural in it, so the amount that was in the book made sense. I enjoyed the influence legends of witches had on the story and the clues it gave Sadie.

For the most part, The Last Girl to Die is told from the first-person point of view, occasionally switching to the third-person to fill in the blanks when needed. This worked for me, as the first-person chapters helped me to establish a connection with Sadie and kept the story going at a fast pace, while the occasional third-person chapters helped to pull back, take a wider view, and raise the tension a little.

As you can imagine, I found Sadie to be a likeable character! I did feel like she was necessarily antagonistic with the police at times, shooting herself in the foot, but the police aren’t exactly upstanding citizens either so I get it. I don’t think the police were necessarily bad, but they did have a small-town mentality that created a few weird decisions.

I’ll try not to be too descriptive about the ending, but I have to give a (hopefully vague) warning that it’s not exactly happy. There is definitely closure to the story and I thought the ending was well-done, but if you like a happy ending, you may want to find out more about the book before reading.

Overall, I found this to be a fascinating thriller! It’s evocative, fast-paced, and I really liked Sadie and the Island of Mull!

Disclaimer: I got a free copy of this book from the publisher. All opinions in this review are my own.