annieb123
Originally posted on my blog Nonstop Reader.
The Last Lie Told is the first Finley O'Sullivan PI mystery by Debra Webb. Released 1st Aug 2022 from Amazon on their Thomas & Mercer imprint, it's 315 pages and will be available in paperback, audio, and ebook formats. It's worth noting that the ebook format has a handy interactive table of contents as well as interactive links and references throughout. I've really become enamored of ebooks with interactive formats lately. For Kindle Unlimited subscribers, this book is currently included in the KU subscription library to borrow and read for free.
This is an engaging and well told legal mystery. The plotting is solid and action driven. The dialogue is smoothly written and I never found myself yanked out of my suspension of disbelief by clunky passages or ridiculous scenes. That being said, however, people who are intimately familiar with or who work in the legal professions will likely find some of the situations ethically problematic or unbelievable.
Protagonist Finley is well rendered, intelligent, and tough. Although it's a bit trope-y that she's suffering from the fallout from her husband's violent death less than a year prior to the events in this book, the author manages to avoid the larger archetypes and traps of the genre.
Sensitive readers might find the descriptions of violent sexual assault and murder distressing. The language is R-rated, and there are liberal uses of rugged curse words. There are a number of disparate plot threads and not all of them are resolved in their entirety in this book.
Three and a half stars. Worth a look for fans of PI/legal thrillers. Book 2 is due out in March 2023 (and will also be included in the KU library).
Disclosure: I received an ARC at no cost from the author/publisher for review purposes.