Thank you, NetGalley, for the ARC of Every Last Fear by Alex Finlay. After a night of partying and heavy drinking, NYU student Matt Pine is awoken with news that his family has died on vacation in Mexico. The local Mexican police state that the family died from asphyxiation of toxic gas. The FBI and the State Department believe the family was murdered and assign agent Sarah Keller to assist Matt and begin an investigation. Matt has faced tragedy before as his older brother Danny is in prison for murdering his girlfriend. Because his brother was the subject of a crime documentary on Netflix, the death of Matt’s parents and younger siblings makes national news. The twists and turns within the story will have you guessing until the very end. It was a great story.

I have no idea how I missed this one. I just noticed it was not on my list and not on my kindle even though I know I downloaded it. I think Amazon messed up. Or somehow it was not loaded onto my kindle. If I can get it and read it I will come back and write a review. I'm so so sorry.

#NetGalley, #everylastfear, #stmartinspress

This would have been an excellent, fast-paced read - but sadly there were too many stereotypes written into the story as it relates to the country, culture and people of Mexico. I can't overlook problematic writing, even if the base of the story was good.

It all started with a party that went terribly wrong. Matt, a college student who is somewhat estranged from his family, especially his father, receives word that his family has suffered a fatal accident while on vacation in Mexico. He has to go to Mexico to claim their bodies and bring them home. After meeting some shady characters while in Mexico, he goes on a quest to find out what really happened to his family. His sister, Maggie, was on the trail of something or someone through tips she received via the social media accounts she had setup … to help their older brother, Danny. Agent Keller, with the FBI, is on Matt’s side and wants justice for his family.

This story has just about everything you could want. A close-knit family with some secrets intermixed. Some political undertones. FBI involvement. The guilty party turned out to be someone very unexpected. Matt’s close friends also play an integral part in this story, a misfit group for sure but they stick close together.

This was a "Did not Finish" for me. I tried multiple times to read this and I kept setting it down and having to force myself to pick it back up. I continue to be intriqued on the progression of this novel and how the author will work this out, but after a few months I continue to lack to interest and desire to pick this back up. In the beginning the characters seem flat and not well developed. In the event that I do finish this one I will update my feedback at that time.

I think the hype surrounding this book affected my overall enjoyment of the work. While it was a well-written mystery, I do not feel that it was breaking any new ground. Admittedly, this could have been influenced by the fact that I had read some of the best books of the year-to-date just before opening EVERY LAST FEAR. I will give the author another chance with a future book, mainly because I do know many early readers who enjoyed this novel much more than I did.

This was very good. Unfortunately, I didn't realize how good for the first three quarters of it. But there was enough intrigue there to keep me interested. Enough revelations or more questions to keep me reading. It was also a nice change for me to be reading through a male protagonist. Fortunately, the last quarter ramped up nicely and delivered on everything I like to see in a thriller...logical connections, believable relationships and credible reactions. Thank you to Minotaur Books/NetGalley for the advanced copy. Highly recommend regardless of the slow burn in the beginning.

I would first off like to say thank you to both Minotaur Books and Netgalley for an advance copy of Every Last Fear.

I first went into this book with high hopes of having the next greatest thriller and was hoping for some major plot twists. Unfortunately this book was just okay for me. The overall story was enjoyable and I didn't see the final reveal coming. I also didn't agree with some of the ways that Mexican culture was referenced and that brought my rating down quite a bit. Overall, it was enjoyable but not something I think I would reread again.

The Pine family. They are fighting for their oldest son. He was convicted of murdering his high school girlfriend. But then there is a docudrama done about the crime and it looks like he might not have done it.


But then that poor family really gets slammed. They must be the bad luck clan for sure. I will admit...I almost dnf'ed this sucker because most of it is way over the top. Then I took it camping with us this week and guess what?!


There is a lot of characters back story and I really was not holding out much hope for it..then I got attached to the family.


It ended up being a lovely little time by the lake while the dogs barked at people that dared come near our campsite.
Booksource: Netgalley in exchange for review.

I read this book and enjoyed it. I know there is controversy but I can appreciate a good plot and storyline. This book kept me guessing and I really liked the story with the character questions, such as who is really involved and what really happened. Can anyone be trusted? Was something missed? Highly recommend this one.

Flawlessly structured, the book effortlessly weaves plots and subplots together toward an explosive climax that feels inevitable. All the while, I kept impossibly hoping that the family would somehow be saved. An amazing work.

This is an incredible debut thriller! I couldn’t put it down — was hooked from the very beginning and had to know what was happening: This thriller has everything — murder, twists, turns, the FBI, and a true crime doc referenced throughout the book. I highly recommend this book!

Every last fear is a great first novel by author Alex Finlay. It tackles a delicate subject because so many persons are wrongfully incarcerated each year. I must admit I wasn’t particularly all that interested with it for the first few chapters because while Matt is certainly no bad guy I found his character a little dull. We never really get to know him beside his tense relationship with his family, his amazing group of friends and some backstory when he gets to his hometown. Things started to get really interesting when we were introduced to his family via flashbacks. Maggie was quite the detective and Evan was an amazing father who would have done anything to protect his family. Another thing I liked was the inclusion of scenes from the netflix documentary, the author really nailed the true crime vibe.
I loved that this book had not one but two mysteries that converged in the end and the plot twists at the end, which are revealed so fast one after another, left me speechless.
It was a good read and I’ll be looking forward to Finlay’s next book!

Thanks St. Martin's Press and netgalley for the egalley of the book in exchange for an honest review.

Matt Pine's tragedy goes beyond what we would normally feel was a dreadful event...he lost everything and everyone in this powerfully written novel by Alex Finlay. This novel was expertly written and had me at the edge of my seat encouraging and warning Matt out loud as I read this book! 😆 My husband kept asking me if I was talking to him. This book was a poignant and genuine example of how a family can be torn apart because of other people's greed and manipulation. It doubtlessly conveys the love and faith of a father for his family that he stopped at nothing to show the world his son was innocent. A superbly written novel that I would certainly recommend to thriller/suspense book lovers around the globe! 😉📖👍🏼

The story is told through alternating timelines and multiple POVs. It was a great way to tell the story and really allowed the reader to understand what was happening in the investigation and in the lives of the family before the murders. It was a lot of characters, and I was a bit worried as they started to be introduced that I would end up lost, but Finlay writes in a way that keeps everything organized and easy to follow!

It was definitely a story that was filled with twists, which is so important for a good thriller (in my opinion). I was furiously turning the pages to try and figure out what was going on, and every time I thought I knew, I was wrong! It made for a great story!

Matt is a college boy just trying to live his party life and maybe drown out the fact that his brother was convicted of committing a crime and is now serving time. Well all of a sudden, Matt is informed that his family members other than his older brother all died while in Mexico. To make matters worse, the case regarding Matt's family is the topic of a new Netflix series. Matt now has to reflect on his brother's crime and dig into what happened to his family. Is there a connection? Does Matt know more than he originally thought? This was full of suspense and thrill. I was on the edge of my seat and did not know what to expect. This is a great book and I will add more of Finlay's books to my TBR list.

NYU student Matt Pine gets the most devastating news of his life: his whole family was found dead—Mom, Dad, little sister and little brother—while on a trip in Mexico. He's left alone, older brother Danny in prison for murdering his high-school girlfriend. Every Last Fear is told in multiple perspectives in a nonlinear timeline, searching for answers about who killed the Pines, and raising questions about if Danny is actually innocent, which his father always believed he was.

I was drawn into the premise of this book. However, nothing quite drew me in, except wanting to know how the Pines were killed. I didn't feel connected to any of the characters and their development was very minimal. I was not blown away by the ending either. This was just an okay read to me.

This book I adored! I loved how the mystery unfurled and while I've heard some complaints about portraying characters, I really enjoyed this book! I will read anything this author writes to be sure.

An "E Ticket" thrill ride from cover to cover. This book was so good, so fresh, so original, that I had to read it a second time. Grabs your attention in the first chapter and then never let's go after that.

Every Last Fear by Alex Finlay is a face-paced mystery told from multiple different perspectives and multiple different time frames. I was pulled in immediately from the first line and was please with the book from start to finish. Matt Pine's family is found dead while on a trip to Mexico. Was it a freak accident, or was it something more? As the story develops, FBI Agent Keller and Matt work together to figure out what happened to his family. I enjoyed Matt's character and felt his frustration and confusion at the whole situation. And I loved Agent Kellers' determination to get to the truth. This was a hit for me, my first hit of 2021.