Last Night
Karen Ellis
Mulholland Books 2019
309 pages
Last Night is the newest mystery thriller by American writer Karen Ellis, the pseudonym for Katia Lief. It is the highly anticipated sequel to A Map of the Dark; the first book in The Searchers series. The difference between the two, is that in Last Night, the main investigator is NYPD Detective Lex Cole, not FBI agent Elsa Myers.Kindle at Amazon: Last Night (The Searchers Book 2)
Two teenagers have been independently been reported missing. Relative strangers, nobody knows that they are together.
Titus “Crisp” Crispo is anything but a stereotype. A mixed-race young man raised by a loving single mother in a poor New York neighbourhood, he is an upstanding citizen and a great kid. Princeton is in his back pocket.
The random target of racial profiling hours before his valedictory speech, he uses his brilliant mind to insult an obtuse police officer by referencing Kafka. Not a good decision. Crisp finds himself in a detention facility for the night.
Before he is released, he is observed by a vaguely familiar young woman who watches him from the rooftop of her family’s luxury brownstone. White and rich, and a bit of a rebel, Glynnie Dreyfus is up for adventure.
Against his better judgement, Crisp follows Glynnie down the rabbit hole to meet her dealer in a derelict part of town, close to where his absentee father once lived. A young man is shot. The others must atone. Excitement turns into a dangerous game, leaving Detective Cole searching for the missing teens.
Karen Ellis has a way with words. Last Night is an interesting and intelligently written mystery novel. Characters and the storyline are layered and strong.
Here is a case where the reader knows a secret about the main participants, but they do not. It is fun to anticipate and discover just how the author will reveal the information to them, and how past and present will intersect.
Last Night by Karen Ellis is a mystery novel you experience, from moment to moment. It is definitely worth the read.