The Other Vote
Whilst the rest of the country sets about deciding a number of local issues, here’s my latest review of one of the crime books of the year to help the public decide which one of the 18 books they would vote for to help Harrogate establish the final 6. This one was a surprise to me. Tim Weaver’s The Last Goodbye, because I didn’t realise that I’d read anything by him before, as it was such a long time since I’d read the first one in his missing people series and this turned out to be number 12. Although this had close ties to the last book, which I only discovered right at the end, when he told us what he was talking about was based last summer, this means that you can read it as a standalone, as the few references to his wife’s death, that was important to book one, didn’t get in the way of the plot.
As I found out at the end, during the author’s notes, Tim has connections to South Africa and this may be why part of the book is based there. Although I was technically on this earth during the end of the apartheid era, I’m not old enough to remember it. I always like to learn things when reading a crime novel. Especially when it is on an award list and for me, that gives the book some credibility over something that is purely fictional. When an American that David met in a previous book contacted him to try and help him find his mother that went missing in 1985, how he would find her and how it was connected to a father and son going missing at a theme park will have you intrigued from the early pages.
For other people listening to it on audio, like myself, this also has an extra interesting element. That of multiple narrators, with five different voices helping the story move along. This was really helpful, as for part of the story, the chapters were broken up with changes in perspective with the narrator voice change, this allowed me to concentrate for longer and I was able to read it in bed without falling asleep as often as I do with books with a single narrator.
This book is slightly longer than average at around 13 hours and at 10pm last night I still had 3 hours left, so as I write this up, almost 12 hours later, you can see how enthused I was by the end of the story and I hope you will be, too. Although at times there some elements that would stretch your disbelief, I think that this is part of the accepted elements within the thriller side of the crime genre. I really enjoyed this and like all of the books I’ve read so far, I’ll be tempted to read another book by the nominees because of the quality of this one.
https://www.audible.co.uk/pd/The-Last-Goodbye-Audiobook/B0BT4YHJ69?ref_pageloadid=XKzgADUnWnMCgs9g&ref=a_library_t_c5_libItem_B0BT4YHJ69_1&pf_rd_p=7e7340a8-8768-4798-a0ce-83f879c09110&pf_rd_r=MKXEF6GNAXFFS3GKTFWP&pageLoadId=wg5l5Zqjvrtnw2nK&creativeId=14d6a1c2-a3f8-499b-900a-1ae788c317b1
