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Elspeth Bell isn’t sure why her ex-husband, a Hollywood director, invited her to his 50th birthday party. She’s just hoping to quietly make an appearance and leave. However, she is confused to find out she is one of only eight guests. His choice to invite those particular people is unclear, as well. As much as she wants to escape from his large and strange house, made even more discomfiting by the presence of a huge tank holding a giant Pacific octopus, Elspeth ends up staying the whole night.
After an odd night fueled by copious amounts of alcohol and some drugs, she and the other guests wake up to find Richard Bryant dead, the apparent victim of a drug overdose.
Overdose or not — and an autopsy shows that his death was likely murder — the death of a powerful and well-known director gets a thorough and well-publicized investigation. Elspeth, whom Richard discovered and cast in one of his artistic dramas when she was young and new to Hollywood, has been out of the spotlight for a long time, quietly living in New York and raising their daughter. But now she has to stay in Los Angeles as she and the other party guests are questioned repeatedly. She continues to wonder why each person was invited. She knew Richard’s old school friend, his longtime manager, and the studio producer, but not the two stars from his new film or the cinematographer. Neither did she know his new young boyfriend. What did Richard want from each of them?
Over the course of weeks and then months, Elspeth learns more about each person and begins to piece together some of the possible answers to her questions. She is also forced to face her past and the troubled marriage she had with this powerful and controlling man. She had hoped to protect her daughter, now 19 and an actress (with a small part in her father’s new movie). But it’s proving to be difficult and possibly not in her daughter’s best interest.
The Last Guest is a murder mystery, but a stylized and literary one, its surrealism evocative of the film Mulholland Drive. While it does end with a resolution of the mystery, the novel is more an exploration of power, of the psyche of a man who had to be in control, and of the damage he wrought in the lives of those around him. The presence of the octopus, and the frequent descriptions of what octopuses can do, for a while seemed a weird and extraneous element. But it turns out to be an interesting, while still strange, metaphor.
I’m not sure if I would have chosen to read this murder mystery book knowing all I do now about it, but those who find this kind of literary style appealing will doubtless thoroughly appreciate it.
Rated: High. Profanity includes over 100 uses of strong language, around 20 instances of moderate profanity, about 15 uses of mild language, and about 30 instances of the name of Deity in vain. Sexual content includes references to couples having sex but not much detail. Violence includes a man’s death by overdose, possibly helped along by suffocation; mentions of domestic abuse; references to an actress being violated with a prop while filming a movie; a fistfight ending in a bloody nose.
*I received an ARC in exchange for my honest review.
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