It’s been twenty years since Madison James had any kind of success in Hollywood. Now she’s disappeared and a TikTok sleuth has found her purse discarded in a Los Angeles park. The news spreads like wildfire across a nation hungry for celebrity tragedy, and the struggling actress’s mysterious disappearance quickly becomes a national obsession.

Detectives Sarah Delaney and Rob Moreno of the LAPD Missing Persons Unit take the case. But truth is a rare commodity in Tinseltown; some people will stop at nothing to get what they want and Delaney and Moreno soon find themselves mired in Hollywood’s dark underbelly with little in the way of clues.

As revelations from the past emerge, it becomes apparent there is more going on than meets the eye. With an obsessive public watching every step of the investigation, can the police find Madison before she becomes more than just missing?

I am hooked on these types of books. I love the mystery thrillers and this one did not disappoint. I was hooked from the beginning. Cannot wait to read more from the author.

This book was written so well. I've been struggling to enjoy mystery books after my short Freida McFadden obsession, but this book revived my love. Even with the back and forth time hops, I was able to follow along, which is very difficult for me. There were just enough characters to make it a whodunnit without overwhelming the reader. I will say I wasn't overly surprised by the ending or any of the surprises, honestly, BUT I still think it was a good book.

4.5 stars rounded up to 5

I love movies almost as much as I love books so a story about darker side of Hollywood and the world of acting immediately piqued my interest. If you are looking for a fun, entertaining read this summer you will want to check out The Final Act!

The story is centered around the disappearance of an actress/waitress whose acting career never fully took off. Two detectives from LAPD missing persons unit will have to uncover a number of secrets from the past if they want to solve this one.

The star of this story for me was Detective Sarah Delaney. I loved her no nonsense attitude and she was the driving force behind my need to keep turning the pages. I know this is not a series but I would definitely grab a book if it featured her again. I enjoyed the dual timeline and such a compelling cast of side characters. I can’t believe this was my first Lisa Gray book! It definitely won’t be the last!

My bookish peeps at @bookloversthepulse are also loving this one! A huge thank you to @brilliancepublishing for my copy!

The Final Act is a fast paced thriller that takes place in the flashing lights of Hollywood. When a down on her luck former actress goes missing Detective Sarah Delaney is on the case.

I went into this one blind and liked it as a palate cleanser. While forgettable ( One problem with being so far behind on reviews is forgetting details) the story line is compulsively written so that you want to keep turning the pages.

Madison James has ALWAYS wanted to be … a FINAL GIRL 😳… This girl breezed into LA and landed a role in a horror film 🎥… she was dubbed to be the next hot 🔥🔥 star. Move over Neve Campbell… 😉… there is a new girl in town… BUT…Twenty… yes Twenty years later… she is STILL trying to become a Final Girl ..😳🙄 No matter what it takes.. and then… she disappeared.. without a trace… POOF 💥 … Where is Madison James?? 🥺

This was a fast paced thriller that I totally binged!! I didn’t want to put it down!! I loved the past and present POV’s!! So addictive!!👏👏

This was my first @lisagraywriter book… and I am immediately looking at her backlist!! The Dark Room and To Die For sound amazing!! 😍

The Final Act was my first Lisa Gray read, and I’m glad my friends over at @thrillerbookloversthepulse introduced me to her work.

The Final Act takes the dark side of fame and combines it with a missing persons case and a police procedural, all in under 300 pages.

A few highlights:

🎭Gripping Plot: layered with multiple timelines. While I had some twists figured out, it didn’t take away from my enjoyment of the book. You definitely need to pay attention to keep up with the timeline changes, especially with Madison

🎦 Dynamic Characters: the dual POVs of Madison and Sarah worked well and I was invested in the outcome of Madison’s story

I look forward to reading more of Lisa Gray’s books!

Thank you to the publisher and @netgalley for the copy to read and review.

The dark side of Hollywood, misplaced power and privilege, and far reaching consequences hidden by wealth. How far would you go to get the dream? A solid mystery with plenty of red herrings, twists and turns!
A fantastic read. Well done Lisa Gray, I can’t wait to read your next book.

This is the first of Gray’s novels that I’ve read, and I very much enjoyed it. Long-time readers of CR will know that mysteries/crime novels set in and around Hollywood are like catnip for me, and this one was engaging and quickly paced. Thanks to a bout of insomnia, I ended up reading this in just two sittings.In The Final Act, missing persons detective Sarah Delaney and her new partner Rob Moreno take up the case of a missing actress. Madison James’s purse has been found in a park, and thanks to a TikTok “sleuth”, the disappearance is starting to gain traction. Newly assigned to the MPU, Delaney dives right in, and starts to pull apart Madison’s life, her past, and also the world in which she operated. She is a somewhat washed up actress — only three movie credits to her name, 20 years ago, before dropping off the Hollywood map entirely.

As Delaney and Moreno unearth more details, they start to suspect that Madison’s past may hold the key to her disappearance. Over the course of their investigation, they come up against some of the worst elements of Hollywood — especially an abundance of predatory men who believe they have a right to treat women as they see fit, for their own amusement and benefit. Through discussions with Madison’s manager, and others, they also learn about the actress’s journey through the uncaring world of Hollywood. All of this builds to a few surprises, which I won’t describe to avoid spoilers.

Gray takes the story in some interesting directions, and the author’s prose pulled me through. The pacing is excellent, and the characters are well-drawn. It’s not the most innovative mystery/crime novel, but it is a very enjoyable read, and doesn’t lean heavily on genre tropes. I’d certainly be interested in reading more novels featuring Delaney and Moreno, and I think the characters could anchor a series. We get to know Delaney more than Moreno, but there’s more to explore with both of them. (Also, given the reason Delaney moved from robbery-homicide to missing persons also offers plenty of opportunities for stories on the more personal side of a detective series.) I’m also going to have to read more of Gray’s other novels; and I think I’ll start with To Die For.

If you’re after a quickly-paced, engaging crime novel, then I think you could do a lot worse than giving Lisa Gray’s The Final Act a try.

If pretty much every Hollywood themed book and the UNSUB series had a book baby, The Final Act by Lisa Gray would be it!

I really do enjoy a Lisa Gray novel. Always tightly written and well plotted, they draw you in to the story from the beginning and don’t let up til you’ve turned the last page. So it is with her latest novel, The Final Act.

Set in the tawdry tinseltown of Hollywood; home of broken dreams and too many waitresses and busboys who dream of becoming famous, the novel focuses in on Madison James, an aspiring actress who once wanted no more than to be the final girl in a slasher movie.

Things didn’t work out quite the way she hoped and Madison has had her share of Hollywood sleazebags, from the #MeToo producers to the fist heavy stars who necessitate the wearing of sunglasses ’til the bruises disappear.

But Madison is front page news now. She’s disappeared and a Tik Toker has found her purse on a hiking trail. Already Madison’s disappearance is going viral and that’s before Detectives Sarah Delaney and her partner, Rob Moreno from the LAPD Missing Persons Unit are assigned her case.

Told in two timelines, the reader is introduced to the young Madison of 2004; her excitement at being in Hollywood, her casting in a horror film and the review that really got her hopes up. It’s easy to see how Madison was carried away by promises of a glamorous lifestyle and bigger parts to come.

The Madison of 2024 is a very different woman. No longer the naive ingenue, she still hopes for the part that could make her name, but she’s not willing to compromise herself to get there. She’s seen Hollywood destroy too many young women in this oversexualised industry.

Sarah Delaney is new to the LAPD Missing Persons Unit. She’s transferred in from Robbery/Homicide and isn’t saying why she’s made this unusual sidestep. She’s a smart detective though and she knows when someone isn’t telling the whole truth.

Lisa Gray’s novel is bang up to date, even as it references some of the old stories of femicide like The Black Dahlia where the stories are of glamorous but very dead Hollywood stars.

Her plotting is very well layered and it takes a good bit of peeling back to reveal what’s really going on underneath. The clues are there, but the plotline builds in some great twists and tangles a few threads, leaving a mystery that only comes together and unfolds when the time is right.

The result is a fresh, enthralling, contemporary thriller with overtones of old Hollywood and faded glamour feeding straight into today’s obsession with true crime events and Tik Tok memes.

Verdict: a fast -paced, on point thriller with great characters and a superb plotline that keeps the reader turning those pages.

I was introduced to Lisa Gray through her Jessica Shaw books, set in California and full of atmosphere and suspense. Gray’s latest, The Final Act, is a sly and slow-burn take on the Hollywood movie business. The characters are believable, and the plot build’s mystery around a not-quite-famous actress. The chapters alternate between both characters and time, but reads easily and smoothly. When the revelations about Madison James’s disappearance ensue, the story’s tempo and suspense increase nicely. Gray’s a solid storyteller, and the book will be on many readers list of blockbusters.

This fast paced book has excitement and drama and kept my attention while reading it. I loved the short chapters. It is told in multiple POV’s in past and present but it was all clear. It’s my first book by this author and will not be my last. I loved the Hollywood vibes even if it was the seedier side of Hollywood.

Twenty years ago, Madison James was a scream Queen actress in Hollywood. Now she is a has been living in an apartment, waitressing and not getting any new jobs. All of a sudden, a TikTok sensation finds her purse on a trail and she is missing! Two detectives, Sarah and Rob, are working on her case and discover another missing case with similarities. They are working fast to try to solve the case amid lies, deceit and dishonor.

I loved the transcripts from the horror shows, it was a nice touch. I really felt for Madison, she was dealt a bad hand. Her character was well developed, but I loved Sarah’s more! Looking forward to more books by Lisa Gray!

LAPD detectives may find more than they could’ve possibly imagined in the hunt for a missing person…

Madison James enjoyed some moderate success as an actress shortly after the Greyhound bus took her from Indiana to Los Angeles in 2001. Fast forward to 2022 & her main source of income is waitressing, but when she doesn’t show up to her shift & then her purse is found on a hiking trail, the Missing Persons Unit is called in; during the course of their investigation many violent Hollywood secrets start to come to light…

I’ve enjoyed a couple of books from this author in the past & this one did not disappoint! I enjoyed sharing a first name with the female detective & all of the magazine/newspaper articles were a great way to catch up on relevant details throughout the timeline of Madison’s acting career. Would definitely recommend checking out the author’s Instagram because it was fun to see the movie posters she made for the films Madison was in.

Thanks to NetGalley & Thomas & Mercer for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Special thank you to NetGalley, Lisa Gray And Thomas & Mercer for an ARC of this fast-paced mystery/thriller!
I absolutely loved the story line and the characters. The way that the author shifts from timelines and different character perspectives makes it a page-turner, on top of the plot twists throughout. This book will certinaly be a hit. 4.5 ⭐️ for me!

All I needed to see was the author’s name, and I wanted to read The Final Act. Everything I’ve ever read by Lisa Gray is fantastic and this was no exception.

I loved everything about it. The plot, the pace, the characters, the tension, even the past/present timelines. It was all done so well that I was sad when the book was over.

The worst is a good book with an ending that either leaves you hanging or is just so blah, but the conclusion for The Final Act was satisfying.

I cannot wait for Lisa Gray’s next book!

It’s been twenty years since Madison James had any kind of success in Hollywood. Now she’s disappeared and a TikTok sleuth has found her purse discarded in a Los Angeles park. The news spreads like wildfire across a nation hungry for celebrity tragedy, and the struggling actress’s mysterious disappearance quickly becomes a national obsession.

Detectives Sarah Delaney and Rob Moreno of the LAPD Missing Persons Unit take the case. But truth is a rare commodity in Tinseltown; some people will stop at nothing to get what they want and Delaney and Moreno soon find themselves mired in Hollywood’s dark underbelly with little in the way of clues.

As revelations from the past emerge, it becomes apparent there is more going on than meets the eye. With an obsessive public watching every step of the investigation, can the police find Madison before she becomes more than just missing?

Oh man, this was an insane book from start to finish. I went in, expecting a story just about finding a missing woman, but instead got something 10x better.

Madison James had only 3 movie roles before her career fizzed out, thanks to a horrible man. 20 years later, she’s missing and her purse has just been found.

The story started out pretty on track for what I expected, and then the plot twists started and it became an even more enthralling story. I really enjoyed having chapters of Detective Sarah Delaney working the case, but I also loved the chapters from Madison’s POV that told the story of her career’s start (and subsequent end). Brilliant writing.

Other than a few grammar errors that I was pretty much able to read through, this book was an incredible read!

Rating: 4.5/5

Recommend? Absolutely

Wow! This page turner will keep you questioning right up to the shocking reveal. I was hooked. There's a great cast of characters, a gripping mystery, jaw dropping moments, and so much more. I sat down to read this one and before I knew it hours had passed. I was so immersed in the story.

Thank you Netgalley, Lisa Gray and Thomas & Mercer for the eArc of The Final Act.

I've been eyeing up Lisa Gray's books on my TBR list for a while so jumped on the wagon to read The Final Act. This narrative surrounds an actress, Madison James who was just making it big after 3 roles in films but doesn't hit the big bucks.. Years later, Madison working in a place called The Jones Restaurant, just doing her own thing when she mysteriously disappears. Of course, the internet blows uo and everyone is wondering what happened seeing as her purse was found at a hiker trail. Foul play?

The story itself is told in the past when Madison is getting famous and then why she didn't hit the big screens,. The narrative is a captivating one, taking you through the highs and lows of being famous. The drugs, abuse, sexual exploitation as well as fame and fortune.

The present is told by the Missing Persons Department, Detectives Delaney and Moreno. sifting through the tips of the wannabe, armchair detectives of social media. Trying to find out what happened.

The mixture of the two timelines make for a compelling, gripping read. Lisa Gray's writing style is descriptive and pacing is medium throughout the book. The characters. Madison and the Detectives felt well fleshed out and, for me, likeable.

I also had the pleaure of listening to some of this book as an audio version and loved Vivienne Leheny's voice. Her pacing is spot on for this sort of thriller and easy to listen to .

I loved this unique, fast paced thriller! Thanks to NetGalley and for this eARC. The Final Act follows actress Madison James and her fall from almost Hollywood stardom. Madison suddenly goes missing and detectives are racing against the clock to find her before it's too late. There are quite a few twists and turns. I loved that this thriller was unique and also showed the unglamorous side to Hollywood. I really enjoyed this book!

This story was about a missing actress she wasn’t an A list celeb though did star in a well known movie that was a bit like Scream from what I gathered. This is when our detectives come in and start trying to figure this out though there are a lot of actors in this town and that is making it hard to solve.

I felt like this was a really good story with all the twists and turns you want in this genre.