Book Report: The Last Murder at the End of the World by Stuart Turton
Or is it just the first of many?
I have mentioned before that my methodology for picking a new book to buy is neither consistent nor rigorous. I’ll let any feature attract my attention enough to cause me to pick a book from the shelf, and I’ll buy it if I my interest is even slightly piqued. This book was one whose title I thought sounded evocative, so I decided to check it out. When I realized that it was by the same author who wrote The 7 1/2 Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle, the deal was sealed.
I read Hardcastle a few years ago and really enjoyed it. It was the first mystery novel I had read since I was a kid, and I realized then why people like them so much: they’re exciting! That novel had the interesting feature of also being a time loop story, which added a lot of interesting flavor. I thought it was great, and it’s one that I want to revisit in a long time, once I have forgotten exactly how the story goes.
So, with that book in mind, I was excited to check out this new book. I wold have been happy with another time loop mystery, but what I got was a pleasant surprise. It was another excellent mystery with a different complicating framing device, one that made the mystery interesting to try to solve.
I liked this book. I liked it a lot, in fact, and stayed up late reading it. This is significant because I really don’t stay up late for anything unless I absolutely have to. This was a true page-turner, much like Hardcastle was, and I found the mystery enthralling.
I recommend this book to anyone who likes mysteries. I don’t read many of them, but I thought this was a blast to move through. I think I prefer Hardcastle by a hair, so if you don’t want to read two books, I would pick that one. But they’re both great, and neither is a bad pick by any stretch.
I’m doing something slightly new this time, which is adding a synopsis section, which I will try to keep spoiler-free. I do summaries for non-fiction, and I talk a lot about the stories in the fiction book reports in my Like and Dislike sections, but I feel like I may be failing to communicate important things to people who lack the context gained by understanding the plot. While these book reports are primarily for my own benefit, I publish them so that others can learn something as well, and I hope that these reports encourage people to read the books and discuss them. So I think that adding this section will be helpful.
In this report, I will start with my synopsis of the book, followed by my classic likes and dislikes. Then, I will revisit the important topic of writing form (though this will be the first time I write about it in my public book reports, I believe). Finally, I will talk about characters that are too perfect.
Synopsis (No Spoilers)
This story takes place on the island of Chryse (the island is actually unnamed in the story, as far as I can tell; the name Chryse only appears in the B&N exclusive bonus short story at the end of the book, which is strange). The island was the headquarters of Blackheath, a leading scientific organization prior to the end of the world.
The world is mostly dead, wrapped in a fog that contains bugs which kill all humans. Niema Mandripilias, the head of Blackheath, was able to protect the small island from the fog, though it managed to get inside the lab and cut off access to the people who were cryogenically stored there.
Now, the island is home to 122 people, not including those trapped in the lab. Three are elders, people who are survivors of the apocalypse and members of Blackheath. The rest are descendants of survivors, who work the island and provide for the elders. The elders hope to find a solution to the problem of the fog, release the people trapped inside the lab, and reclaim the Earth.
This plan is thrown into the trash when Niema gets murdered. When this happens, more than just the plans for the far future are dashed: the barriers protecting the island from the fog break down, and the island will be consumed by it in just a few days. Niema had a failsafe installed in her person which would deactivate the fence, and it was on when she died.
Abi, an artificial construct created by Niema to communicate across the island, tells the villagers that there’s a loophole in the failsafe: if they can bring her killer to justice, then he can turn the fence back on. The problem is that everyone’s memory from the night of the murder has been erased.
Most of the villagers are docile by nature, never questioning the elders. The one who seems willing to do so, Emory, is unpopular as a result of going against the grain like this. Now, she may be the only one able to puzzle through the events of the forgotten night and save what remains of the human race.
What I Liked
Like with Hardcastle, Turton does a great job of creating a unique scenario for the mystery. Due to the circumstances of the night when Niema died, no one remembers what happened. That means that even the killer wouldn’t know if they were the guilty party. As a result, someone who is being cagey or suspicious has reason to be that way even if they’re completely innocent. It’s a fresh dynamic that makes this feel like a very special version of a classic whodunnit. I’m sure this book is not actually the first time anyone has come up with a mystery plot where not even the guilty would be aware of their guilt, but it’s the first of the kind that I’ve ever read.
I like the characters in the book. I think that Emory, the main investigator, is perhaps a bit too perfect, but otherwise the characters and their backgrounds make for interesting color. Some of the minor mysteries in the book become revealed as you learn more about them, and it makes the situation seem suitably complex.
The device that Turton used to tell the story was interesting. The story is told in the exceedingly rare first-person omniscient perspective, which is a bold choice indeed. But there’s a reason why this happens: Abi, the construct Niema made, is able to see through every character’s eyes and is privy to their thoughts. You flit between character perspectives, in a sense, but you are actually just looking at the story through Abi’s “eyes” the whole time, zooming in on characters that she focuses on. It’s a fascinating way to use the perspective of your story as a storytelling mechanism, which I think warrants celebration.
For the mystery itself, I think that this one was much more solvable than Hardcastle, or at least major elements of it were. It’s obvious from the beginning that Niema has some sort of plan that may end up killing her, and it’s somewhat solvable within the first 30 pages or so. It took me until around page 270, but I was still ahead. Other major developments are possible to figure out yourself, and it’s quite a good time.
On that note, I have found that I enjoy books like this a lot more now that I take notes while reading. It’s fun to mark down predictions and theories, made more fun when you realize you were right. I have two notes in my document for this book that just say “called it,” which were very exciting to write. Taking notes makes me engage with everything I read more, and with a mystery it seems even more fun than usual.
Of course, not all of my notes are about very significant things. For example, one of my notes reads as follows: “147: weird kerning with the font, specifically with end quotes.” I noticed that, for some reason, the space between end quotes and the next letter, even with a space, was very small. The effect of this made it look like there were frequent typos, which was annoying. But this note is hardly worthy of taking, which makes it all the more funny that I felt the need to write it at the time.
Anyway, that’s all I’ll say here. I have more praise to give in further sections, but in general I thought the book was very good.
What I Didn’t Like
These gripes are fairly minor and did little to take away from my enjoyment of the book. Mostly, there are niggling questions that I wish would get answered. One might, the other likely won’t.
The question that won’t get answered pertains to the nature of the fog and the insects it contains. Where did it come from? At one point in the book, someone claims that it sprang from the ground suddenly, which probably isn’t true. Most of the rest of the path from a world like ours to a world like theirs is explained, but this isn’t. I have a theory about what the answer is, but I won’t mention it here for spoiler reasons. I just wish that it was made clear in the book.
The question that might get answered in the future is the nature of the Blackheathverse. Blackheath was the name of the manor in The 7 1/2 Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle, and it’s also the name of the scientific organization that exists on the island in this book. It’s completely unclear to me what the relationship is. Is this just a nod to previous work? Are they somehow linked?
I would be inclined to say that they are unrelated and this is just the author winking at something else he wrote, but the short story after the end of the book has the main character from Hardcastle traveling to the island in this book by boat, presumably prior to the events described in it. So is this somehow a sequel to Hardcastle? I really have no idea, and it seems a bit odd. But I’m happy to keep tuning into Turton’s books to find out, given my enjoyment of the two I have read so far. I actually ordered another one of his books immediately after I finished this one, so expect to see another Turton book report some time in the next ten years.
I do have one final gripe, which is that I’m not horribly optimistic that this truly was the last murder. But I won’t get into it, since that could tempt spoilers.
Writing Form
I am often fascinated by the style that people use when they write from a mechanical perspective. Do they pick third or first person for the perspective? How long are their chapters? What’s the ratio of dialogue to description? Little things like that jump out to me, and they make me think about the strengths and weaknesses of different styles.
I’ve linked to this more than anything else in my life, but this blog post by John McCrae was what made me start noticing and thinking about this kind of thing. How you place your sentences and how you separate them should be a very deliberate exercise. These decisions affect how important the information appears to the reader.
This sentence, for instance, will stand out more than the ones that comes before and after.
I criticized James Patterson a few years ago when I read 1st Case for the exceedingly short chapter length. Looking back at my old report, the book had 95 chapters, but each chapter was less than 1,000 words long (note: I had to reference my old book report because I donated the book to a library, which might have been cruel of me). It was crazy to read it, honestly, and I really didn’t like it. I discovered that Patterson did this deliberately after some focus testing, which revealed to him that the average reader finds this easier to engage with.
I noticed early on in The Last Murder at the End of the World that the chapters here were short as well, which I was immediately wary of. It didn’t work for me with Patterson, and I was concerned that it wouldn’t work here either. I didn’t remember Hardcastle being similar, so my fear was that Turton was following Patterson’s lead: fuel for despair.
The difference, I think, is that Turton does a much better job of making his writing concise and pithy. He did the necessary editing to ensure that the short chapter length was justified, whereas Patterson really didn’t in my opinion. Turton doesn’t seem like he was really trying to make every chapter incredibly short. There’s a bell curve here, and the chapters are just as long as they need to be. Unlike Patterson (and the unsung Chris Tebbets, who did most of the actual writing for Patterson’s book), Turton is pretty exact with his words. There really isn’t much fat at all in any of the book, so the short chapter style works here in a way that it really didn’t in 1st Case.
I made a note of a particularly good sentence that captures this well. Describing one of the elders who struggles to connect with people: “She never learned how to read people, how to pick up the corner of a sentence and peer underneath.” This was a sentence that stood alone as a paragraph, something that Turton does quite a bit more than is typical. But with a sentence that cuts as clearly as this, and as artfully, this style works.
The first person omniscient thing works because of the character that is telling the story. The present tense used in the book, which he did in Hardcastle as well, doesn’t feel strange for the same reason. The short chapters seem appropriate because he’s good at writing things succinctly. Any of these elements might have been out of place in another book, or in another author’s hands (like mine…I struggle to write in short form). I think it’s a positive mark that Turton can make these unorthodox choices and have it work out well.
I’m glad I pay attention to these things. I feel like I learn a lot of valuable lessons by doing so.
Perfect Characters
I made a note when I was reading: “162: I'm glad that Niema is not Elisabet Sobeck.” This will take some explaining.
Elisabet Sobeck is a character in a video game called Horizon: Zero Dawn. You play as Aloy, who runs around in a post-apocalyptic world trying to…do a bunch of things. It’s not super important.
The real story of the game, or at least the most interesting one, is the lore that you pick up in pieces as you travel the world and progress the main plot. You learn about the circumstances and characters that created the world you live in. One of the past’s major players is Dr. Elisabet Sobeck, a polymath scientist who created machines. The robots she designed were able to turn back the clock on the environmental damage that humanity had wrought. Eventually, the company she worked for started making military solutions using her concepts, so she left the company. Eventually, the company came begging for her help because they made something that would destroy the world. She fought super hard and was always right, but it wasn’t enough, so she had to come up with a desperate play that would leave some hope for humanity’s eventual comeback.
The story is interesting. Elisabet is not.
My problem with her character is that she doesn’t seem to have any flaws. Everything she does is hard, but right, and she never backs down no matter how bad the situation gets. She has to make tough calls, but history always proves her right. The decisions that haunt her are the ones that were right, but had unavoidable bad consequences. She’s the smartest, most moral, most coolest person ever in the world she lived in. If she were a real person, she would be inspiring. As a fictional character, she kinda stinks.
Compare this with someone like Hal Emmerich, otherwise known as Otacon. Yes, I’m talking about Metal Gear Solid again.
In some ways, these characters are pretty similar. Both hate that the science they worked on got used for nefarious purposes. Both are incredibly smart, and they work diligently to fight against the technologies they helped bring into the world.
The difference? Elisabet is a superhero, while Otacon is a weenie. Otacon famously pees his pants in the first scene you meet him. He’s a coward, makes excuses right up until the moment when he absolutely has to take responsibility, and is generally a big crybaby about everything. His good qualities are balanced by the bad ones, making him much more compelling.
Think about it this way: when Otacon comes on screen, you never know if he’s done something good or made some moral mistake. When Elisabet appears, you’re certain she’s going to be doing the hard right over the easy wrong and telling off everyone who isn’t doing the same. She’s predictably perfect and boring as a result, and I don’t like her as a character.
Why bring this up? Well, like my note said, I had concerns about Niema, who seemed very much like an Elisabet Sobeck character to me. She’s the one that came up with a way to protect the island from the fog, she’s the one who opened its doors to survivors to gather there, she’s the one that’s kind to the villagers and makes time for them when the other elders don’t, etc. For a while, the only thing that was interesting about her was that she was dead, but even that seemed like it might have been part of her plan.
So I was very happy to discover some time later in the book that she had demons, and interesting ones at that. The image she shows to the reader is not one that represents who she has always been. The discoveries are interesting and well-timed, and it made me like her a lot more as a character.
The closest thing this book has to a perfect character is Emory, who stands out among the villagers as the only one who questions the status quo. Why are the elders different, why can they do things the villagers can’t? It’s a little odd that she would be so inquisitive when that seems to run so counter to her culture, but I remembered that Niema was actively encouraging this behavior in her, which makes sense given context that I won’t provide for spoiler reasons. I just wish that Emory had a few more flaws, but it’s not that big a deal. She’s no superhero—she’s no Sobeck.
What’s my point here? I guess it’s to be careful with characters that are too excellent at everything. They tend to be boring.
Final Thoughts
Another win for Turton. Another great mystery novel. I really should try to read more of them. If only I didn’t already have a titanic stack of books to read…
I’ll be hitting some non-fiction again for my next book report. I’m trying to bounce back and forth a little bit to keep things interesting for myself. Hopefully you, all two or three of my very dear readers, enjoy it as well.