The
Last to Disappear, by Jo Spain.
The last woman to disappear in Jo Spain’s taut thriller is a temporary Hotel tourist guide in the winter wonderland of Lapland in Northern Finland, but unlike the others, her body surfaces thanks to the efforts of an ice fisherman on the lake looking for other prey. It is the height of the tourist season, being close to Christmas, and the town of Koppe depends heavily on its tourists: ‘The Home of Father Christmas!’ ‘See the Northern Lights!’ ‘Skiing – Saunas – ice swims!’ A dead body could be very off-putting, so the local police inform the unfortunate woman’s British family that she has had a fatal accident, and would anyone care to come and collect their loved one’s remains?
Alex Evans, Lobbyist (he hates his job but loves the
money), makes the trip, for the awful news has left his parents in
disarray; his mother is felled by a
heart attack and his father won’t leave her side – Alex himself feels enormous
guilt because he didn’t get on with his sister Vicky; he considered her irresponsible and a
spendthrift and, at the age of 26, capable of making more mature decisions
about her life: now she’s gone, and he
didn’t even let her know his new phone number months after he changed it. He is bereft.
And totally unprepared in his Burberry raincoat and
leather shoes for the subzero climate of Koppe;
fortunately local police chief Agatha Koskinen is aware of his ignorance
and has brought boots and jackets to the airport, saving him from certain
weather-induced death - and the awful news that the post-mortem has revealed
that Vicky’s death was not accidental:
she has been murdered.
It was agonising enough to have to be the family member
to identify ‘the body’, but to think that his sister met her death by someone
else’s hand infuriates Alex. He decides to stay on for a few days to see what
he can find out and, apart from hearing about the other missing women (the
locals are great gossips), it is clear that Agatha has a murky history of her
own: this is the Town of Secrets, as
well as Santa Claus.
There are parallel flashbacks to 1998 throughout the
story, recounting the circumstances of the first young woman to go missing and
revealing the Viper’s nest a small town can be as people try to survive in a
land of extreme weathers. Jo Spain has
painted a bleak but beautiful picture of life, love and lust in a cold climate
and all her characters are credible and well-drawn without being the least
formulaic. This book is the ideal
holiday read (if you’re lucky enough to have one!) FIVE STARS.
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