Aubrey Hamilton Reviews: The Last House Guest by Megan Miranda

The Last House Guest by Megan Miranda (Simon & Schuster, 2019) is a deceptively strong mystery. Like its protagonist, it has hidden depths. It’s billed as a thriller but it isn’t. It is a mystery with an amateur sleuth who is pulled into investigating a supposed suicide to save herself. It started slowly but by a third of the way through, I became engaged.

The small coastal town of Littleport, Maine, relies heavily on the summer tourist trade for its economic viability. Many of the restaurants and small businesses operate for the four-month vacation season and close or reduce their operations for the rest of the year. Avery Greer grew up in Littleport and was fully familiar with the summer cycle of vacationers who appeared at the beginning of the season and disappeared at the end. Generally the locals and the temporary residents did not form friendships but in her late teens, she met Sadie Loman, the only daughter of the real estate Lomans, who had been buying up rental properties, diverting what had been a local source of cash flow to an out-of-state corporation. They developed a bond that aroused suspicion in the locals and in Sadie’s family because the line between the tourists and the locals had always been set. Through Sadie, Avery was given a job managing the Loman’s Littleport property.

At the end of one summer, the weekend after Labor Day, Sadie drowned. The police assumed that she had jumped from a cliff into the ocean below. Avery and the Lomans are shattered. A year later they are still coming to terms with their loss when Avery is stunned to find Sadie’s cell phone, which was assumed to have gone into the ocean with her, in a blanket chest in one of the rental units. As the implications of this discovery sink in, she begins to search for more clues that might show Sadie was murdered. Unfortunately, every clue she finds can be directed back at her.

The story moves back and forth between the time of Sadie’s death to a year later. This lack of linear timeframe is always irritating to me but it supports the slowly building suspense that is subtly woven into the storytelling. Layer after layer is smoothly revealed until the last two pages, which drop a bombshell. A satisfying mystery along with an interesting character study.

Starred review from Publishers Weekly.

·         Hardcover: 352 pages

·         Publisher: Simon & Schuster (June 18, 2019)

·         Language: English

·         ISBN-10: 1501165372

·         ISBN-13: 978-1501165375

Aubrey Hamilton ©2020

Aubrey Hamilton is a former librarian who works on Federal It projects by day and reads mysteries at night.