#BookReview ‘Every Last Fear’ by Alex Finlay

About the book..

In one of the year’s most anticipated debut psychological thrillers, a family made infamous by a true crime documentary is found dead, leaving their surviving son to uncover the truth about their final days.

“They found the bodies on a Tuesday.” So begins this twisty and breathtaking novel that traces the fate of the Pine family, a thriller that will both leave you on the edge of your seat and move you to tears.

After a late night of partying, NYU student Matt Pine returns to his dorm room to devastating news: nearly his entire family—his mom, his dad, his little brother and sister—have been found dead from an apparent gas leak while vacationing in Mexico. The local police claim it was an accident, but the FBI and State Department seem far less certain—and they won’t tell Matt why.

The tragedy makes headlines everywhere because this isn’t the first time the Pine family has been thrust into the media spotlight. Matt’s older brother, Danny—currently serving a life sentence for the murder of his teenage girlfriend Charlotte—was the subject of a viral true crime documentary suggesting that Danny was wrongfully convicted. Though the country has rallied behind Danny, Matt holds a secret about his brother that he’s never told anyone: the night Charlotte was killed Matt saw something that makes him believe his brother is guilty of the crime.

When Matt returns to his small hometown to bury his parents and siblings, he’s faced with a hostile community that was villainized by the documentary, a frenzied media, and memories he’d hoped to leave behind forever. Now, as the deaths in Mexico appear increasingly suspicious and connected to Danny’s case, Matt must unearth the truth behind the crime that sent his brother to prison—putting his own life in peril—and forcing him to confront his every last fear.

Told through multiple points-of-view and alternating between past and present, Alex Finlay’s Every Last Fear is not only a page-turning thriller, it’s also a poignant story about a family managing heartbreak and tragedy, and living through a fame they never wanted

Many thanks to Lauren from Head Of Zeus for the blogtour invite and gifted review copy of ‘Every Last Fear’ by Alex Finlay which is published in hardcover on March 2nd!

Wow. This is the type of book you cannot just pick up for a chapter before bedtime and then put down again. It is the kind that you will prop your eyes open with matchsticks to keep on reading into the witching hour. Matt is the last-free-member of the infamous Pine family, as the book opens, he receives the devastating news that his parents, sister and brother have all been killed in a fire. And, even worse, he now has the FBI fraud team watching his every move, as well as making him break the news to his brother , David. Who has been imprisoned for the murder of his teen girlfriend.

So that is, as my kids would say, A LOT. Due to the press interest in his brother’s case, a podcast then true crime documentary was made about it so Matt anticipates that his grief will be on public display. All he wants to do is get through college and his plans are suddenly derailed by the efforts of others who think they know him.

It explores, in detail, not only the case from what the public would have seen, courtesy of the podcast/tv show, but also from the family itself. Matt’s father had used it as leverage to open an appeal, convinced as he is, of David’s innocence. But is David really that innocent? Or is he just the cause du jour?

I really enjoyed the short chapters, the interplay between the different narrators and working out the whys and wherefores of the central crime. It dives deep into how what we view as entertainment actually affects real lives. The casual viewer, the armchair detective, has culpability in this by driving up the figures, making ordinary people household names and public property.

What is the fascination with using real lives as a platform for monetary gain, notoriety?

Is it a race to the truth, an expose of wrongdoings with altruistic roots?

Or simply a cynical money making exercise?

I found the subtextual analysis of the true crime genre fascinating, and it turns an introspective gaze onto the reader to look at why they enjoy the things we do-to be fair, reading about the solving of murders is a bit of an odd hobby, but, in a world of confusion and no clear cut endings, maybe there is therapeutic value in finding out whodunnit, undoing miscarriages of justice with modern forensic techniques, or, learning from the lessons of the past in order not to repeat them in the future?

Whichever way you choose to look at it, ‘Every Last Fear’ has a believable story line, well drawn characters and an air of suspense and mystery which left me with chills. Highly recommended!

About the author…

Alex Finlay is the pseudonym of an author who lives in Washington, D.C. Born in the American South, Alex spent years traversing the globe, from a tropical island in the Pacific to a small village in the UK to a remote region in the Far East. But it was on a trip to Tulum, Mexico that Alex was inspired to write Every Last Fear.

Links-https://alexfinlaybooks.com/