The Last Encore by Rebecca Heath had the bad luck to be the book I picked up after one of my favourite reads of the year and unfortunately, it did not help this book. Even if I hadn’t read this directly after one of my favourite books of the year, this was just an average thriller for me.
The Last Encore is a thriller in which the members of a band reunite 18 years after the tragic death of their lead singer, at a new resort on a remote island. The plan is to put on a concert, and hopefully put some life back into the careers of some of the former band members, but little soon one of them is dead and it’s clear that there is something sinister going on on the island.
The story was told from multiple points of view, as these types of thrillers usually are, but I found it hard at times to determine whose point of view I was reading as most of the characters felt the same. I also found that their actions when not in their point of view conflicted a lot of the time with the thoughts and behaviours they displayed in their own points of view.
I found some of the elements of the story a bit unbelievable, things that would have immediately made me suspicious…or maybe I’ve just watched too many true crime shows, and have a suspicious mind. I also felt like it took a long time to get to the meat of the story, a lot of the first half of it was just laying the groundwork to set up various suspects for the murder that finally took place. It was already clear that the characters had problems with each other so it didn’t feel necessary to drag out that part of the story for so long.
Overall this was an average thriller for me, but I have no doubt that lots of readers will love it. I think I was probably more critical of it after coming off a really spectacular read.
I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.
Life, Tea, and Everything 