She Treads Softly: The Last Sinner

Tuesday, June 20, 2023

The Last Sinner

The Last Sinner by Lisa Jackson
6/27/23; 400 pages
Kensington
New Orleans #9

The Last Sinner by Lisa Jackson is a very highly recommended twisty Southern Gothic thriller which has led me to declare that I am never visiting New Orleans.

New Orleans homicide detectives Rick Bentz and Reuben Montoya are back. When a crazed killer targets Kristi Bentz, she is injured, but her husband Jay McKnight is killed defending her. Kristi has a series of true crime best sellers and one of the killer she wrote about may be after her. At the same time it appears that Father John, a fake priest obsessed with killing women that they though was killed and left for dead in a swamp, may be back or a copycat is at work. Several recent murders have followed Father John's modus operandi, choking victims to death by a string of sharpened rosary beads.

The set ups of the attacks happening and questions surrounding them work up to a frantic nail-biting pace that will keep you glued to the pages as they flew by. I was surprised at the page count as it felt shorter when I was reading. Is Father John back and responsible for all the murders and attempt on Kristi's life? She did write a book about him. Or is it someone else Kristi wrote about? What is happening is unpredictable and held my attention from beginning to end.

This is my first in the New Orleans series and I think I need to read the previous installments. It does work as a stand-alone for anyone who wants to start here, but you'll feel the same way and want to revisit previous novels in the series. All of the characters are great and feel like realistic, unique individuals. The plot was totally unpredictable and kept me guessing to the end. The Last Sinner is a winning summer read!

Disclosure: My review copy was courtesy of Kensington via NetGalley.

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John Updike's six rules for reviewing:

1. Try to understand what the author wished to do, and do not blame him for not achieving what he did not attempt.

2. Give him enough direct quotation--at least one extended passage--of the book's prose so the review's reader can form his own impression, can get his own taste.

3. Confirm your description of the book with quotation from the book, if only phrase-long, rather than proceeding by fuzzy precis.

4. Go easy on plot summary, and do not give away the ending.

5. If the book is judged deficient, cite a successful example along the same lines, from the author's oeuvre or elsewhere. Try to understand the failure. Sure it's his and not yours?

To these concrete five might be added a vaguer sixth, having to do with maintaining a chemical purity in the reaction between product and appraiser.....Review the book, not the reputation.... Better to praise and share than blame and ban. The communion between reviewer and his public is based upon the presumption of certain possible joys in reading, and all our discriminations should curve toward that end.