Reviews with content warning for Violence - The Last Murder at the End of the World

This was my first read by Stuart Turton, and I had such high hopes for it. The premise was intriguing: only 125 people remain on Earth, living on a post-apocalyptic island surrounded by an insect-infested fog. The narrator is an AI advisor communicating through the thoughts of the villagers and scientists, created to keep them alive and safe. When a murder is committed, we are thrown into a murder investigation with only 92 hours to solve the crime or all of civilization will die. Why? Because... well... reasons? I still don't have a clue.

The setting is fascinating. The idea of a dwindling human population isolated on a desolate island enveloped by a deadly fog sets the stage for a gripping story. Turton’s choice of an AI narrator is a unique move. This AI, designed to protect and guide the remaining humans, offers a unique perspective on the unfolding events. The blend of science fiction and mystery is compelling, and the stakes couldn't be higher with the survival of the last humans hanging in the balance.

The first half of the story had me completely invested. I loved the originality, and I thought I knew where the book was heading. The buildup was intense, and the premise held so much promise. However, once the murder investigation really took off, I found myself losing interest. The plot began to meander, and the urgency that initially hooked me started to dissipate.

The murder investigation left me with more questions than answers. The 92-hour deadline to solve the crime added tension, but the reasons behind this ticking clock were unclear and, ultimately, unsatisfying. I struggled to stay engaged. By the end, I was left feeling confused and frustrated, with too many questions unanswered.

This is a book that I feel I would get a lot more out of on a second read-through, but I just don't have the desire to go through it a second time. I love Turton's out-of-the-box writing style, and I'm excited to give his book The 7½ Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle a read. I'm so sad this one didn't work for me. While it has an intriguing premise and a unique narrative approach, the execution left much to be desired.

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bandysbooks's review

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adventurous funny mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

Stuart Turton is an author I’ve been wanting to read for quite a while. I’ve heard so many people rave about his writing, so when I saw this pop up on Netgalley I knew I wanted to give it a try. I’m glad I did.

This book is set on an island after a post-apocalyptic scenario where a poisonous gas cloud killed off most of the world. There are 122 survivors and 3 scientists on a small Greek island. The scientists have created strict rules for how the society should function and everyone has a role. Then one of the scientists is murdered and it triggers a short period of time before the island’s defenses drop letting the poison gas in. Only solving the murder can prevent it.

Look, I won’t pretend this is a perfect book. This is very twisty and unrealistic, so it requires a fair amount of suspension of disbelief and there are a few plot threads that never get tied up. That said, I had a good time with this.

I appreciated the mixture of post-apocalyptic scenario with murder mystery and even a sprinkle of police procedural elements.It created a really unique vibe that was conveyed really well by the narrator of the audiobook.

Speaking of which, I really appreciated the main focal character. That added to the uniqueness of the book and once again was captured perfectly in the audiobook.

I will say that some elements were a bit predictable and there were some twists and caveats thrown in to try and keep things surprising. That wasn’t always successful.

Ultimately, this wasn’t the best book I read this year, but it was a fun read. I would recommend this to people looking for a fun mystery/thriller with post-apocalyptic elements. If you decide to give this a try, consider checking out the audiobook as the narration was done well.

Thank you to Netgalley, the publisher and Stuart Turton for the audio-ARC.

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rosa_lina96's review

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adventurous challenging dark mysterious tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

Appreciated the air of this book and the many mysteries and twists to be found throughout (which I thought were rather artfully executed all in all). I will admit that the narrative took a little while to truly grip me, and the ending with the overall solution to the village's problem seemed a bit abrupt, but it was still an interesting story about what kinds of morals people would develop after an apocalyptic situation (ie seeing the worst of what humanity could potentially offer) and what it even means to be human in the first place (can you truly be a human if you were only made to serve a purpose and nothing else?). I'm now looking forward to potentially reading more books by this author.

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yvo_about_books's review against another edition

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adventurous mysterious tense medium-paced

4.5

Finished reading: July 20th 2024

“The secrets on this island have teeth, and they don't like being dragged into the light.”

It kind of has become a tradition to buddy read Stuart Turton's books with Nicki, so of course we ended up doing the same with his newest title The Last Murder At The End Of The World. One of the things I love about his writing is just how completely different and unique each of his books is, and you never know what genre or story you are going to get. It's true that I don't exactly read a lot of dystopian stories, but I'm game for just about anything as long as Stuart Turton writes it. And I have to say that it turned out to be yet another very successful buddy read! The Last Murder At The End Of The World uses a multiple POV structure and there are a LOT of different characters to keep apart. A list of names is provided in the beginning, which definitely helped... But it still slowed down the pace a little in the beginning, especially since most are not the easiest names to remember. The dystopian world itself is intriguing, and I loved how you only slowly started to learn more about what was REALLY going on. This isn't just a murder mystery or a race against the clock, as it also shows you both sides of humanity and gives you plenty of puzzles to tackle along the way. The story started out slower than expected and this is not my favorite Stuart Turton, but especially the second half was brilliant. It was fun going back and forth with Nicki talking about and processing yet another shocking reveal... And of course there was also the obligatory baking involved. I'm keeping this review short as it's hard to properly talk about the plot without spoiling certain things... The Last Murder At The End Of The World is one of those books where it's best to go in blind. I can say that I never did guess the full truth about it all though! It's without doubt a very satisfying read, and I will already be looking forward to his next book (supposedly a more contemporary thriller; can't wait!).

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aseel_reads's review

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adventurous mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

this was super easy to read and i was hooked very quickly from the start. i pretty much had no real thoughts as to who could be the killer, we weren't given enough information to try and solve it ourselves. it was pretty obvious who it wasn't but the reason relatively well-developed and logical.

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jefferz's review against another edition

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mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

1.5

The Last Murder at the End of the World feels like it should’ve been something directly catered to my taste which is a murder mystery investigation wrapped up in a post-apocalyptic, science fiction (borderline dystopian) dressing. This one is hard to talk without giving away crucial spoilers that would heavily affect the reading experience. The novel had all the right elements and pieces to work with and Stuart Turton had a lot of creative and intriguing concepts included. In an alternate universe with some tweaking, this could’ve been a knockout hit. Unfortunately for me, the novel’s science fiction flavor gets a bit out of hand and is frankly a mess. Numerous unexplained apocalyptic elements weaken what should’ve been a well-done murder investigation story.

Set on a protected island where the last survivors of an apocalyptic fog inhabit, the setup for the plot was good. There’s a clear timeline of events dictated by a countdown to extinction that separates each section of the book. The first 40% of the story focused on introducing various villagers on the island, their relationship with three revered scientists, and the dynamics of the island. The book has a long-running metaphor of equating the villagers to an ant colony; each villager has their part to play to keep the group going. Each villager is also connected mentally to an AI named Abi, who gently acts as a guiding conscious, informant of happenings on the island, and general mental support. This entire section hammers home the village culture of not asking questions, doing what you’re told, making personal sacrifices for the greater good, which conflicts with the FMC Emory’s questioning of the status quo. The novel also takes the time to introduce a variety of villagers, shifting to each of their perspectives told via a 3rd person narrative. Turton cleverly has the story conveyed via Abi who describes most of the story in 3rd person, only occasionally switching to 1st person when Abi is directly speaking or conveying their thoughts (I laughed at reviews confused by the shift in pronouns and tense, it ain’t hard to follow folks).

Truthfully, I struggled to get through this section that felt incredibly slow and devoid of interest. Running with the ant metaphor, I felt like I was watching one of those home artificial ant colony kits. You can see the characters playing their roles and Turton tries to humanize them, but like ants they all felt simple-minded, dispensable (opposite of what the novel wants you to feel) and I really didn’t care what happened to them. The plot and perspectives eventually stabilize, choosing to focus on Emory, her daughter Clara, her father Seth, and the three scientists. The story also shifts to other villagers’ perspectives, but they ultimately contribute little to the story. There are chapters told from certain characters such as Hephaestus (the youngest of the three scientists) and Adil (an exiled villager) that I felt actually detracted from the reading experience, as they gave far too much information and took away some of the unknown suspense. I understand that this introductory arc was designed to be extensive to pull its major plot-twist that upends the entire civilization introduced, but it hinders the book’s core enjoyment in two ways. One, for fans of the actual murder mystery, it goes on way too long and derails any interest that was building from the strong start, with the actual murder taking place almost halfway in. Two, for fans of the science fiction apocalyptic genre, it gives the reader a false impression of what the book is about. The back-half of the book is almost entirely investigation based and I’ve seen numerous negative reviews comment on how they liked the first half and got lost in the second half.

I personally fell in the first camp of liking the murder investigation but not the science fiction elements. This may go without saying, but in order to function as “science fiction”, there needs to be some sort of actual science involved with the fiction. I’m baffled that some people classify this as speculative fiction which is science fiction that is grounded, plausible, near-future style. Nothing in this novel is grounded or science-based. Nearly all of the intriguing science fiction elements don’t get an actual explanation, some examples being the origin of the fog, how the insects in the fog kill people, where all of the scientists’ advance technology comes from, how Abi even works in practice, etc. Nearly all these elements are explained as merely existing because it is so. Humans created the technology as a weapon which somehow got out of control and destroyed the world. How do we know it has killed people and threw society into chaos and anarchy? We don’t, we’re told it did and that is that. There’s technology for altering, extracting and wiping memories, yet no explanation on how this works (I would love a nice summary of how a machine can extract memories and put it into a gemstone that someone can then hold and relive the memories imbued in it). There are weaponized flowers, the killer insects in the fog, heavy machinery for drilling and creating waves, life-creating plans, blight-causing chemicals, there’s so much random things going on. And Abi’s AI function and origin is perhaps one of the most baffling and random reveals in the book’s epilogue.

The AI is an underground sentient root spread across the entire island? And it’s connected to the villagers how? And how do new villagers spawn from a similar vine with dew? I have so many questions, I don’t even know where to start.

Unlike other readers, I could fully follow what was happening and carefully read into all of the science fiction details, but the more I thought about it, the more ludicrous they seemed.

On the positive side, the murder mystery and investigation are solid. There were lots of good plot twists in the back half of the book and despite having some obvious culprit suspicions, it came together in a surprisingly solid timeline of events for the crime. The clues are good, the back-and-forth suspicion was effective, and the various dystopian elements start to form a picture. It certainly isn’t enough to redeem the first half’s explained mess, but it was the better executed element of the story vs the science fiction. I originally picked up this book as I was already interested in Turton’s earlier mystery novels, The 7 ½ Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle and The Devil and the Dark Water, but I decided to try this one first since it was a recent release. From this, I got the impression that Turton is probably a far better mystery writer than a science fiction writer. The acknowledgement section appears to confirm that his works are fundamentally murder mysteries flavored with different genres for style, in this case post-apocalypse.

All in all, this was a bit of a letdown. I wouldn’t go so far as to call it a disappointment (I wasn’t invested enough to care that much), but it certainly was not an enjoyable read. The ideas and concepts were there, but the lack of explanations and details give the impression of throwing stuff at a wall to see what sticks and creates a picture. I suspect that if you like the characters or the village’s roles/day to day activities, you’ll rate this higher.

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jstilts's review

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adventurous dark emotional hopeful inspiring mysterious reflective relaxing sad tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

Hugely compelling page-turner!

A murder mystery set in a small near-utopian agraian village of less than 200 people plus three scientists and an AI that speaks in their minds - the last remnants of our society.

Everyone's memory of the night of an unprecedented murder has been wiped, and the murder is causing the deadly fog to roll in - unless the murder is solved in a few short days the AI won't be able to put the barriers back up to save the island.

Luckily, one of the villagers has never found their place in their rural life due to an uncontrollable urge to ask awkward questions, and she will do anything to save her family and village - making her the perfect detective in a world that has always spurned her skills.

It's a brilliant setting for an enthralling book that keeps up the pace, but still has time to build characters with depth and feeling, places you can picture in your mind and a society worth saving - everything a reader needs to make them desperate to keep turning pages to see if this beautiful world and it's people will survive.

Honestly, despite some of the hardships and controls and secrets that keep this island from being a full Eden of leisure, it's a place I'd love to be. I'd happily read prequels of this book where nothing happens but experiencing their lives!

Touching, mysterious, packed with twists and exciting revelations, heartfelt relationships (and a few egoists) - and a whodunnit to boot complete with map! - I haven't enjoyed a book this much in a long time. Highly recommend!

One thing of note - as the AI can read everyone's thoughts, the book is basically narrated by the AI. That may sound a little kooky, but the book flows perfectly normally, it's just that occasionally the book refers to itself and talks directly to the reader - an endearing and perfectly charming touch!

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beepbeep101's review

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adventurous emotional hopeful inspiring mysterious tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

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