Book review: The Last Party by AR Torre

Wow, what a head-spin The Last Party by AR Torre turned out to be. Much of the book seems frustratingly obvious. We’re given an incredibly unlikeable character who we learn, loves to lie, is jealous of her husband’s affection for their daughter and …. (wait for it), intends on killing her daughter and two friends to replicate a famous murder from over two decades earlier, casting doubt on that killer’s innocence, freeing him so he can be beholden to her. Or something. Yes… WTAF?! As a result much of the early part of the book annoyed me. I mean… our lead, Perla, is fucking mad and horrible. And did I mention fucking mad? As a character and narrator she’s incredibly unpalatable. But… Torre throws in some surprises that I certainly did not see coming and that are so incredibly clever, they blew me away.

Perla Wultz lives with her husband, Grant, and their precious daughter, Sophie, in a gated Pasadena community. Affluent, sociable, and accomplished, Perla plays the part of loving wife and mother to perfection. It seems an ideal life, if not for a decades-old crime that has become Perla’s dark and consuming secret obsession.

Twenty-three years ago, Leewood Folcrum confessed to murdering young girls during a 12th birthday party. Though he’s been condemned to a life sentence, his crime is not forgotten. Not by Perla, nor by an inquisitive doctoral student interviewing Folcrum for his dissertation. He’s getting the killer to open up—about his motives, his confession, and the truth of what really happened on that horrible night.

As the past and the present entwine, the deceptions behind the infamous murder begin to surface. But who’s deceiving who now? And why? And as an ingeniously twisted plan is set in motion, who will be the next to die?

My thoughts

I tend to expect twists in my thrillers and crime fiction. I mean, it’s a given. So I kept wondering how Torre would redeem Perla’s character in some way. Was there some clever time slip and all really was not going to play out like we expect? Or perhaps someone’s writing a novel about a killer and none of it is real?

This book unfolds from multiple points of view. Firstly there’s the not-so-delightful Perla, wife to Grant, mother to Sophie. We spend time with Sophie through journal entries, giving us an unfiltered account of her family life and understanding way more than her parents expect as she approaches her 12th birthday. We also spend time with Leewood who’s been in prison for 23 years and who has no intention of seeking retrial or parole. But who also tells us he’s innocent. Well, kinda. He’s a little cagey about the details. Through Leewood we also meet a post-doctoral student who’s wanting to understand what led Leewood to snap and murder the girls two decades earlier. Leewood suspects the student has another agenda but can’t quite work it out.

We also get more insight into the characters by post-event witness accounts of sorts – paragraphs preceding chapters which reflect on those we meet here.

Through Perla we’re taken back to her past. To an unhappy childhood before being fostered by a wealthy family whose wealth she’s now inherited to fund her extravagant and somewhat hedonistic lifestyle. She’s tightly wound, snapping at her husband, acting petulantly but manipulating him so she ultimately gets what she wants. Grant seems surprisingly acquiescent, only pushing back when it comes to Sophie. I didn’t get as good a read on him but we learn he has secrets as well – unfurled by Torre and timed perfectly to kick off a series of surprises.

I wonder if Torre will lose some readers by making Perla such a distasteful character, particularly those not accustomed to her writing and ‘dark’ reveals. I actually found it quite shocking, how merciless and unempathetic she was. Most certainly a psychopath (or sociopath) and definitely a narcissist. But I’d strongly suggest readers hang in there because this is very much worth it!

I think I’ve only read one other book by Torre (back in 2014 writing as Alessandra Torre) but I know I enjoyed it so much I was keen to read more.