This is the latest book by the Australian author, Jane Harper, who wrote the award-winning novel The Lost Man. I found her last two books less riveting than that, but it seems to me she’s back on top form with this one. Last One Out is excellent! So good, in fact, that I give it 5-Stars.
Last One Out is about two deaths in a small town in New South Wales: a young man, missing and probably dead 5 years previously, and the disappearance, apparent suicide, of his uncle a few years before that. It is also about a town and its population that is fracturing under the pressure from an ever-expanding and ever-encroaching coalmine.
The story
Five years ago, Ro Crowley waited rather impatiently for her son, Sam, to come home for his birthday dinner. A sociology student at university he was doing a final year project which involved interviewing all his friends and neighbours about their reaction to the coalmine and the dying town. Many people in town had already sold to the mine and moved away, so there are many empty, now worthless, properties around. When it became apparent that Sam was missing a search got underway. It was discovered that his last visit was to three abandoned properties, where only one set of footprints (his) lead in and then out. And then nothing.
Every year since, a memorial for the missing young man is held by his parents and other locals. Ro, his mother, who left some years ago, is back, as always searching for answers; his father, Griff, who stayed in the town, holds a truce with her for these few days.
But this year things are different. Ro finds answers in her son’s interview transcripts that start to unravel the mystery, both of his disappearance and of the so-called suicide of his uncle which has never been explained.
There is a real atmosphere of sorrow, anger and menace in this book. It is friend against friend over the question: do we sell to the mine or not? Some people leave almost immediately, some stay in their now almost worthless homes, bitter and resentful towards their neighbours who didn’t stay to fight the mine.
The solution to both mysteries, closely linked, is, when it comes late in the story, both desperately sad and also shocking.
My verdict.
This is a really good, slow-burning and very atmospheric book. Most characters come to vivid life, especially Rowena and Griff. But also heartbreakingly described is the plight of the two teenaged sons of the neighbours, lonely, bored and without friends, who are edging towards criminality in their desperate search for something to do.
The mine is almost a character in its own right as it sits like a menacing beast in the background. The low rumble from the machinery is always present and keeps getting slowly louder, as the diggings follow the coal seam which sits directly beneath the town. Its shadowy management team are chillingly described – people who offer a fair price for the homes they need, but once only; and then ever-decreasing sums until they offer no more.
Last One Out is a really good book. The pace is slow and steady all the way through and I found it utterly mesmerising. I think it deserves 5 Stars.
Review by: Freyja
What’s in a Star?
At Oundle Crime we reckon 5 Stars = “Outstanding and unforgettable. A book you can’t wait to tell others about.”
If you’d like to meet other crime fiction fans and chat about the books and authors you enjoy, why not come along to an Oundle Crime meeting? It’s relaxed and friendly, and anyone can drop in. Email join@friendsofoundlelibrary.org.uk and we’ll send you the details.