Audiobook Review - The Last Murder at the End of the World

I’m gonna be honest with you: I have no idea how this got on my radar. It just appeared one day and, after picking it up and down several times, I went “Sod it!” and bought the audiobook. And what I got was something I wasn’t expecting (something I now discover the author does with every book he’s released). 

Title and Author: The Last Murder at the End of the World by Stuart Turton
Publisher: Raven Books & Bloomsbury
Bought, Borrowed or Gifted: Bought
Buy From (Affiliate): uk.bookshop.org

The world is ravaged by a fog that will kill all in its path. The only safe place is a small Greece island where 122 villagers and 3 scientists live, where all live in harmony, all overseen by ABI, an artificial intelligence who keeps the security fields up and the fog at bay. 

But one morning, the island wakes up to one of the scientists is brutally stabbed, which triggers the security fields to lower, meaning that the fog will be on the island within 92 hours. 

What makes the situation worse is that ABI has wiped everyone’s memories so no one can remember what happened the previous night, and even they don’t know what happened or who gave the order to erase the night’s events. 

Meaning someone on the island is a killer and they don’t even know it. And the only way to put the security fields back up is to find the killer and figure out what happened last night…

I will be honest with you. I didn’t know what I was going to get with this. I just liked the cover and the blurb on the book, but I had such a good time with this. 

It’s such a strange beast. It’s sci-if post-apocalyptic novel with a murder mystery at its heart. And I devoured this! I had such a blast with this, much more than I thought I would as the last few reads have been very middle of the road for me. 

Because this is a mix of genres, you do have to give a tad more leeway over some of the far-fetched moments and elements, though there were several times that I did go “that seems like a stretch”. Plus, there are so many names thrown at the reader that you need a moment to go “are you important to the story?” 

But this was unputdownable with the murder and the wider issues this book tackled (AI, generics, the environment, etc) and the audiobook is narrated by Adjoa Andoh makes this feel much richer. I really liked this as it was twisty, fun, unputdownable read, but I completely understand that this isn’t everyone’s cup of tea reading for a crime thriller. I must say I’m intrigued to try out this author’s previous works.