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The Last Girl    by Jane Casey Amazon.com order for
Last Girl
by Jane Casey
Order:  USA  Can
Minotaur, 2013 (2013)
Hardcover, CD, e-Book
* *   Reviewed by Hilary Williamson

The Last Girl is the third in Jane Casey's police procedural series, starring D. C. Maeve Kerrigan in London, England. It opens innocently enough on fifteen-year-old Lydia, swimming at night to exhaustion, trying to erase herself. When she finally goes inside she finds her twin sister Laura and their mother Vita slaughtered in the sitting-room.

This all happens in the mansion of Lydia's father Philip Kennford, a very obnoxious and very wealthy London defense attorney. He was attacked and left unconscious in the bedroom. The big questions for the police are why did this happen and who was the primary target? The barrister seems the obvious one, but then why was he left alive?

Maeve is partnered with a more senior officer, DI Josh Derwent who seems to delight in making her life difficult. Complicating matters further, their boss, Superintendent Godley, who often seems to favor Maeve, starts making questionable calls in a case involving a crime lords' turf war, 'a load of drug dealers and scumbags killing each other.'

Lydia, has serious issues - she's anorexic and cuts herself. Her father shows little concern for her - her rebellious sister Laura was his favourite, but Laura had her secrets too. And there's another daughter, Kennford's child by his first marriage, supermodel Savannah Wentworth - Lydia takes refuge with Savannah and her partner Zoe, but is she involved?

More deaths follow in this rather disjointed mystery, but the puzzle of the bizarre killings pulls reader interest through the story - and the conclusion is a shocker!

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