Thank you NetGalley and Publisher for allowing me to read and review this book.

Enjoyable thriller with good narration. I will be going back to read the first in the series.

Nancy North is recovering from a psychotic break when she and her partner Felix are forced to move into a new flat. She’s doing everything right—seeing her psychiatrist and taking her meds—but the stress of the move and the new, terrible apartment trigger an episode. She remembers having a disturbing conversation with her neighbor, Kira Mullan, but Nancy is hazy about the details. All she is has is a disturbing feeling that something isn’t right in her new building. When Kira ends up dead, Nancy’s fears are confirmed, but the death is ruled a suicide. Nancy tries to raise alarms bells with her neighbors, partner, and the police, but is faced with the reality that no one believes a woman with a history like hers.

I didn’t realize it was the second book in a series about detective Maud O’Connor, and while this book can be read as a stand-alone, I felt like I was missing some context about Maud and wished I had read Has Anyone Seen Charlotte Salter first. This one is a darker thriller than I was expecting. I don’t want to give away too much, but the treatment Nancy receives around her mental illness was pretty traumatizing and took up a large section of the book where the crime was on the back burner. I think it could definitely be triggering for some readers. Most of the characters were pretty intensely dislikable, which is a great set up for a murder mystery. There were a lot of suspects I would have been thrilled to see get what they deserved. And the story explored an interesting theme of how far would you really go to help someone else? I think fans of detective stories will enjoy this one and I’m definitely planning to go back read Maud’s origin story.

Sophie Roberts narrates this one and handles both Nancy and Maud’s POVs well. She injected the exact right element of panic into Nancy’s sections, and I loved Maud’s no nonsense delivery. I’d definitely recommend this one on audio!

Former chef, Nancy North had a breakdown and now cannot be trusted to know reality from her psychotic breaks. Moving to a new flat with her boyfriend, Felix, Nancy is feeling very fragile and starts to believe she is coming apart again. She calls her therapist, has a session and even has her meds adjusted. Then her new neighbor Kira is found dead. Everyone believes it was suicide. But Nancy knows Kira was murdered. Everyone else seems to think Nancy is having more issues so Felix remands her back into a sanitarium.
Nancy plays the game, (even though she is quite sane), and upon release from the hospital, starts to quietly investigate Kira's death again. Luckily, this time DI Maud O'Connor is there to help and believes Nancy. Both women work to get justice for Kira and get Nancy out of a bad situation.

*Special thanks to NetGalley and HarperAudio for this digital audio e-arc.*

Entertaining, engaging - and infuriating. (That husband!!!) A recommended purchase in all formats for collections where crime and thrillers are popular.

The Last Days of Kira Mullan is another brilliantly written story about DI Maude O’Connor and how she sees evidence her lazy, misogynistic fellow police officers miss. It is a story about how she is essentially all alone while pursuing clues and trying to help other women and find out the truth. It is also a very realistic and sad look at how people with mental health issues are treated and ignored. The way Nancy North was treated by her partner, her neighbors, and the mental health professionals was so intense and disturbing at first that I had to take a break from listening. (Perhaps if I had been reading instead it wouldn’t have been so bad, but I could literally hear her panic and feel her despair.)

If this hadn't been a Netgalley book, I would've walked away early on, but because I was given the ARC I made myself push through.

The problem wasn't with the story, it was me. I find gaslighting and control vile, and I have an extremely difficult time stomaching men dubbing a woman's behavior as crazy and being able to have her committed involuntarily. Hard pass on all those subjects, but at least it didn't last the whole book.

There is a big mystery in this book. Did Kira kill herself? If not, who did? And also, is Nancy having a psychotic break and thus, an unreliable narrator? I won't spoil anything, just say this was a moderately-paced book, taut, sympathetic main character, and leaned heavily into the British version of the Good Ol' Boys network of men behaving poorly and dismissing (and sabotaging) women. There's so much misogyny in this book, it was on nearly every page. It's a lot to swallow in such concentration. But that added to the tension of the plot. Interesting plot, good ending, just painful to get through.

French’s second novel in the Maud O'Connor Detective series, The Last Days of Kira Mullan, focuses more on Nancy North, a young woman who is convinced her down stairs neighbor did not commit suicide. Nancy has suffered serious mental problems in recent months, so her concerns are dismissed by the detective in charge of Kira’s investigation. Nancy is also being gaslighted by her partner and the neighbors who all have reasons to want the investigation wrapped up quickly. This is often a difficult book to read due to the cruel treatment Nancy receives, but this mystery moves at a good clip. I found it a bit puzzling that Maud really doesn’t make much of an appearance until the last half of the book, but the novel held my interest.
The narrator of the Audiobook was terrific.

This one is a slow unfolding, but never boring. Nancy was a nicely developed character. She was likable and vulnerable which made her story interesting, even if I wasn't entirely sure she was reliable. I felt sorry for her and I also wanted her to defend herself. The way her boyfriend and then the mental health professionals treated her stirred emotions in me that made me stick with this, wanting to hear a good outcome for her.

Maud, the DI, is an interesting character, too. I didn't realize she is featured in another book as well. I'm not big on detective novels anymore, but I was relieved this wasn't so bogged down in police procedures and remained more focused on the ongoing story.

Narration was very good. Enjoyed! 🎧

Thanks to HarperAudio as always, for allowing me to listen to this ARC!

The Last Days of Kira Mullan is just as gripping as Has Anyone Seen Charlotte Salter?. Nicci French masterfully weaves suspense and psychological depth as Nancy North, recovering from a breakdown, becomes convinced her neighbor’s death isn’t what it seems. The tension builds steadily, with twists that keep you guessing until the final pages. A must-read for fans of intelligent, character-driven thrillers.