Last Place You Look by Louisa Scarr – a review BLOG TOUR

A big thanks to Damp Pebbles for inviting me onto the blog tour for Last Place You Look which is a new police procedural series by Louisa Scarr.

Last Place You Look introduces us to DS Robin Butler and his new partner DC Freya West. Jonathan Miller is found dead in his hotel room, just four days after attending his best friends birthday party. It is assumed that it was a solitary sex act gone wrong as Butler and West head off to go and inform the widow. Unfortunately their first assignment doesn’t get off to a great start as Butler sees West acting like it’s her first day on the job. Unbeknownst to Butler, West was having an affair with the dead man. She is certain that he wouldn’t have died in the way he did, and is determined to find out the truth. However things soon start to get even more complicated as the relationship between Butler and West is tested more than they could have imagined and secrets start to be unveiled.

I like a police procedural novel and this one was no exception.  This was an intriguing tale that I found drew me in from the start. You know that the death is going to be more complicated that it first seems as any book that starts with a swingers party isn’t going to end up heading to St Mary’s Mead. I did think the actual police procedure part was almost secondary to the story, there weren’t great long paragraphs recounting minute details regarding the investigation, but that wasn’t a bad thing. The dialogue between the characters swept the story along, and with it all being written in the third person you get to know inside all the characters minds.

Despite the fact that both the main characters are hiding big (and career changing) secrets I still actually liked them both. Of course they are flawed, but certainly with Robin Butler you begin to see why he is the way he is as we find out more about his background and his family. Equally with Freya West, her decision making was a bit flawed in my eyes but I still thought she was a good character.

The story had a relatively slow start but I found myself quickly getting caught up in the moment and I raced through to the end. This was a good start to a series and I look forward to reading more in this series.

To find out what others thought of Last Place You Look head over to the other stops on the blog tour:

You can get your own copy from tomorrow:

Amazon UK: http://amzn.to/3v4YOiC