The Last is an end of the world murder mystery which I can not recommend enough. Set in a hotel in Switzerland, occupants find that numerous conuntries around the world have launched nuclear weapons at each other. From Day one the occupants find that not only do they have to deal with the isolation and surviving the end of the world but also there could be a murderer amongst them.

The main protagonist Jon, an American Historian begins to investigate the death of a young girl murdered at the hotel, slowly peeling back the anxieties (past and present) of the hotel guests as well as uncovering the dark history of the hotel.

The story and characters are well thought out and extremely plausible touching on present day anxieties whilst adding in a great murder mystery.

I loved the idea of the book more than the book itself.
When I read the description I was like, "wow that's a book that's speaking about the big fear we all got in this day and age". After finishing the book I'm being left disappointed...I defo still love the story line idea; the end of the world after a nuclear blast is such a current and scary scenario.
I thought the characters were a bit flat and boring, the ending was a bit dull and sudden. The story peaked at no point and just flowed along.
The story idea deserves 10 stars unfortunately the execution is poor.

Sorry, this book just didn't grab me. I couldn't connect with the main character, and I just didn't really care about anyone who was left in the hotel, I didn't think their stories were really expanded on enough for me to connect with anyone, and I felt a bit cheated once I'd finished reading it - it promised so much more and it just didn't deliver for me.

Sorry - my thanks to Netgalley for the advance copy though.

I really enjoyed this book! I'm a big fan of apocalypse or post apocalypse fiction, and this was a really interesting mix of nuclear war and crime / investigation thriller. It was a thoughtful look at a very plausible end of the world as we know it scenario, and how that affects a small group of normal people. I enjoyed the supporting characters, all well defined and believable, and the main character and his doubts and worries were interesting and kept me hooked - this didn't take long to read, but I did stay up a bit later than I really planned to. Only a few of the 'usual' post apocalypse cliches in the book (I do love a good trip to the ransacked food store with fear and guns!) which was a pleasant change, Overall I'm very grateful to Netgalley for the free review copy, and WILL recommend this to some apocalyptic fiction fans I know. I'm very glad I got the opportunity to read it, and I'm sure it's one that will stay with me. Great stuff!

A gritty thriller exploring the secrets we are willing to keep even when the world ends. Fast paced and well plotted

A dark, fast paced, dystopian thriller which I very much enjoyed. It resonates especially in today's climate. I really enjoyed The Last and would recommend it.

What a thrilling ride. I was hooked within the first few pages and felt there were a few nods to a certain current politician which I found particularly scary. The atmosphere was chilling and the characters were well drawn. Hopefully there will be a sequel.

The stage for this book is set in a hotel deep in the forests of Switzerland at what just so happens to be the end of the world. After entire cities around the globe are destroyed by bombs, a collection of residents are left stranded within the hotel to wait out for what happens next. In an Agatha Christie worthy twist in the story, a body of a young girl shows up which means only one thing, a guest has committed a murder.

With the concept of the end of the world as the main driving force behind this story, it created some really interesting dynamics for the plot and characters. Throughout the novel we get to see how social situations and standards could change when certain things occur during an apocalypse. If someone commits what we would know as a crime, how is justice served? If someone has a medical emergency what do you do when help isn't a simple phone call away? Are women more important because they can reproduce or is that unfair to men? All of these questions and more are explored within this story and it was one of my favourite things about the book. Following these characters as they face situations and dilemmas where questions like these arise was so interesting. I felt the author was very realistic in displaying how moral compasses are tested when the world is no longer what it was.

As well as being morally interesting, The Last was just a really enjoyable read. It has moments of intense suspense, action and touching emotion. Each character was very well developed and multi-layered which just gave more depth to the story as a whole.

If you are a fan of thrillers or post-apocalyptic/dystopian novels then this book is well worth the read.

What would you do if the world went mad and destroyed itself with nuclear weapons? Would you stay put or run? Would you hide from others or face the future? The event occurs and in a remote hotel a group of people face an uncertain future. A brilliant read that makes you question how you would cope in such a scary new world. Twists, turns, stress and hope. Enjoy this good read.

An interesting concept! I didnt feel at the start I would like this book but it sucked me in and kept me reading!
It has good character building and makes you wonder? The characters are stranded in a hotel in Switzerland when nuclear bombs go off around the world. Has anyone survived? Are they the only ones?
At times there does seem to be a parallel with Hell-is this real or are they in Hell? I’ll leave you to decide!!

For those of you looking to try a new genre...how about 'Trump-induced apocalypse/whodunnit'?

That's the eye-catching premise here. Nuclear war wipes out much of humanity and a small group of survivors in a Swiss hotel try to adapt to the new world. However, the discovery of a young girl's body suggests one among them may be a killer.

I thought this was hugely enjoyable and zipped through it. There are times when the book isn't quite sure if it wants to focus on the post-apocalyptic elements or the whodunnit element but as I greatly enjoyed both this wasn't a problem.

The narrator Jon, was an agreeable but imperfect hero and the author carried out the difficult task of introducing a large number of supporting characters very well.

The writing and pacing was great but the author could perhaps have ratcheted up the tension even more. This is lot more gentle ride than, say The Road and could have benefited from a little more threat at times. However, I much prefer this to The Road personally; there is hope and humour amongst the bleakness.

All in all a cracking debut and an author to watch. There were hints of other genre elements in the book (like Arran's visitor) so I'm hoping Hanna Jameson continues into genre writing and not mainstream crime...but I'll likely read whatever she does next.

Despite being given an advance copy by NetGalley and the associated publishers I am not really enjoying this book...it left me with feeling quite depressed. I see that other reviewers loved the 'new world' genre but I found it disturbing. There is a lot of character searching and not enough action for my taste. I am finding it good in some parts and sufficiently dark and miserable in others that I am skipping sections of a page. Perhaps I just don't have the imagination for what our existence could be like should this event really take place. I will get to the end but not a volume I will be revisiting.

This book is everything it promises to be and more! It’s dark – perhaps all the more so because dystopian future it depicts hits close to home – but the mysterious plot line makes it compelling and difficult to put down. It’s urgent and exciting and like nothing I’ve read before. I loved reading this book and would highly recommend, even (or perhaps especially!) if you’re not usually a mystery or dystopian genre reader.

As a fan of post-apocalyptic fiction, I was excited to read this and in terms of genre expectations, it didn't disappoint. The novel begins as the nuclear strikes do, so there's a sense of breathless urgency without time to get used to setting or characters which is dizzying and effective, As the days and then weeks tick by in Jon's hastily-begun journal/logbook/historical diary, we get to know the disparate multi-national group gathered in an isolated Swiss hotel and I found this one of the most unsettling aspects - being trapped with people you couldn't necessarily even communicate with, much less trust or rely on.
There are gripes for me, however. In the aftermath of nuclear annihilation, how useful is it to be dwelling on the fact that a serial killer once stayed at the hotel? Or the youthful ghost visions of one of the survivors. Or the possible misdeeds of a mysterious hotel owner? Surely the devastation of the planet supercedes such trivia, and yet the narrative pays these aspects too much attention in my opinion.
SPOILER ALERT
You might also be forgiven for questioning why some turn to cannibalism after mere weeks, particularly once you find out there's a functioning city with hot water, food and comfortable, safe housing not far away. It's almost laughable in that I pictured a couple of cannibals, as they approach the town gnawing a human femur, pausing mid-bite as they notice the cheery townsfolk wandering towards their annual Thanksgiving picnic and muttering 'I think we may have made a terrible mistake...'

As a post-apocalyptic novel, The Last ticked a lot of boxes for me. The reader sees the moment when the calamitous event – in this case, the use of nuclear weapons to attack various targets around the globe – happens, and observes as civilisation breaks down in no time at all. Our means of communication, so much of it linked to the internet now, fail, and so the pockets of survivors don’t know the true extent of the damage, survival rates, nor who is behind the attacks. They don’t know if there’s anywhere safe they can go. Whilst it can be frustrating not knowing as a reader, I think that this adds a degree of realism to the situation that our survivors find themselves in, and it made me consider how I might act in such a situation, which is exactly what I like about this kind of novel.

Setting The Last in a hotel is a brilliant idea. The twenty or so survivors have some supplies of food and drinking water to rely upon. They have shelter, beds, (cold) water for bathing, and back-up generators that can be used in emergencies. They also have weapons, previously used for recreational hunting, but now providing both sustenance and protection. With careful rationing, these survivors are able to live in relative comfort for some time. Whilst it sounds like they’re having an easy time of it, being cooped up in the isolated hotel allows for cabin fever to set in, and Jameson explores the psychological impact of being one of the few left alive brilliantly. Tempers begin to fray, and group begins to divide, largely into groups based upon nationality. The situation becomes increasingly tense, and I thought that Jameson portrayed perfectly how different characters might act and react in such a situation – the good, the bad, and the ugly.

Jon – our main protagonist – is a historian, and decides to document the end of the world and its immediate aftermath. It seems a little pointless, but I think that it's as much to keep himself occupied as to actually capture the day to day goings on. Throughout, he drops in comments to and about his wife, Nadia, still in America at the time of the bombings. The reader learns a great deal about Jon in this way, and I have to say that not all of it is good. He carries a great deal of regret with him, but realises this when it’s too late to do anything about it. I didn’t like Jon as a character, although he does provide the voice of reason as the novel progresses and the survivors begin to turn on one another, and my poor opinion of him didn’t detract from the story at all.

Combined with the end of the world is the discovery of a little girl’s body. The victim of a murder, no one is sure who she is, nor who is responsible for her death. This adds another dimension to the story, which given the relative ease with which they are initially, at least, surviving the end of the world, adds some drama and an element of paranoia. Jon investigates, capturing his activities as part of his documentation of their survival, but this proves more difficult than usual, and he is reliant upon good ol’ fashioned means of investigation to hunt for clues. It’s an interesting premise, although I did feel that this story line got a little lost in the survival element of the novel.

Combining an end of the world situation with a little And Then There Were None thrown in, The Last is an original and intriguing novel. It’s not as dark as some post-apocalyptic novels can be, and should appeal to readers who enjoyed Station Eleven.

The Last will be published on 24 January on Kindle, and 31 January in hardback. Many thanks to the publisher, Viking, for allowing me to read and review this title ahead of publication via Netgalley.

I really enjoyed this book. It was one of those "I am so frustrated that my eyes can no longer stay open to enable me to keep reading) books that you pick up to read at every opportunity, even if only for 5 minutes. The premise of what actually happens in the event of the end of the world centres around the survival of the main character who is left stranded, with a small group of other people, in a hotel after most of the world is instantaneously wiped out after a nuclear explosion. What I loved about it was the honest exploration of humanity, the sudden breakdown of everything that went "before" while the survivors endeavour to adapt to the "after". There is no sugar coating here but the insights into the personalities of the survivors develop alongside the obsession of the main character to still adhere to some system of justice even though there seems to no longer be much reason to do this. The ending was unexpected and I had to think back to link some of it together but it did link. My one thought was that perhaps this ending could have been drawn out a bit longer to enable it to all sink in within the context of the whole story. The "postscript" to the ending was brilliant, I loved all that it implied.

What a phonominally good read. 'The Last' was quite the departure from my usual genres but it has blown my mind with how good it was. I read the whole thing in just over 24 hours. Thanks to Netgalley for allowing me a free e-copy in return for an honest review.
The main reason this book was so fascinsting for me was because it genuinely could happen. It is not out of the realms of possibiliy that a nucleur war could occur and if it did, then just like in the book, large cities would be destroyed, causing millions to die and the ones left to suffer too. Lack of food and medical supplies would be very real problems during those first few weeks. I paused often whilst reading to think 'what if?'. The truth is I probably wouldn't make it, I would be a complete wuss but then that wouldn't .ake half a good as story as this one.
I 100% rooting for Jon (the protagonist) throughout. He is such a belivable charcter and far from perfect but I never stopped believing he was one of the good guys. There were times when I did wonder if he was going mad, anyone could be forgiven for doing so in his situation, and his unreliable narration really added to the suspense.
5/5 stars and I can't wait to read more by this author.

The Last wasn't at all what I was expecting, but that was no bad thing. I thought I was getting a country house style whodunnit set in a dystopian world - which is a great concept - and on paper this is what this book is, but it's also so much more. It's a moving, terrifying and real look at what makes us human, a community, an examination of grief and destruction, fear and hope.
The book starts with the end of the world and it is horribly plausible. There's an unpopular US president and an escalating arms race and when the narrator, Jon, is an ocean away from his family, at an academic history conference in a country hotel in Switzerland, someone presses the button and he watches cities and countries disappear in real time on Facebook and Twitter. Most of the hotel flee for the airport in a clearly doomed move. but Jon goes into deep shock and stays at the hotel along with a few members of staff, a fellow American historian, some young Europeans and a Japanese family. Americans, Jon and Tomi find themselves almost ostracised at first, as the hotel guests blame them for the end of the world, Tomi in particular, when her voting history is revealed.
As a historian Jon starts to chronicle the day by day world as the guests begin to face up to their future - or lack of it. But when a body is discovered, Jon turns detective, needing to make sense of this one tragedy amidst the much bigger one.
Through his narration Jon reveals his regrets as a father and husband, his insecurities and weaknesses, even as he doggedly carries on in the face of paranoia, apathy and fear.
The Last is an astonishing book, I found it hard to put down, fast paced, exciting and hugely atmospheric, yet one that leaves many questions in the reader's mind long after the book has finished. Highly recommended.

Twenty people in a hotel at the end of the world. When a girl's body is found, it's clear that one of them is a killer

This should have been good, but I didn't get into it at all

I'm a big 'post apocalyptic' fan and also love a good murder mystery, and this book ticks both boxes.

Jon Keller is a history lecturer and writer attending a conference at an isolated location in Switzerland when the world-as-we-know-it ends, with many of the world's major cities being razed in nuclear attacks. Most of the hotel guests make a run for the towns and airports but Jon and a small band of 20 or so remain. With dwindling food, water and power, strange weather and no phone signal or internet the disparate group makes the best of the situation. A body is discovered and Jon takes it upon himself to investigate the death, despite limited interest from the others.

The story is told in the form of a journal - at first in a very perfunctory manner, which I initially found disappointing, but soon it is explained that the shock of the initial events were so traumatic that Jon was only able to record a few basic facts. The events of the first few days were, thankfully, elaborated upon later and by the end many 'loose ends' were tied up.

Characters were well-formed, distinctive and believable. There was quite lot of dialogue, unusual for journal entries, but it worked. The book is incredibly atmospheric and you can feel the social dynamics of the disparate group, their fears and paranoia. Things become particularly dangerous and traumatic when some of the group leave the hotel in search of supplies.

Many theories went through my mind while reading this book - were they in purgatory, was it all a social experiment, was there really a nuclear war, had he gone insane, delusional, etc? Red herrings abound and obviously I won't say which, if any, is true. You'll just have to read it.