The Last Ride
Nick Louth
400 pages
Canelo
Published November 7th, 2024
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This is the second book in the DI Jan Talantire series, following up the brilliant “Two Deaths of Ruth Lyle” with another meticulously plotted mystery. I beta read this for the author back in April, then got the final ARC version from NetGalley: it’s deeply satisfying to both find my name in the credits, and see the changes that I and the other betas had suggested put in place. This works fine as a standalone, and there are no spoilers for the previous book either.
Devon & Cornwall detective Jan Talantire finds herself first on scene at a horrific car crash, where a group of teenage joyriders have lost control of a stolen Mercedes on a remote stretch of road along Bodmin moor. Then Jade, a friend of the accident victims, is reported missing by her worried mother and Jan cannot see how she could’ve walked away unhurt and just disappeared – or did she?
One of my favourite things about this author’s crime fiction is that the Why is usually more important than the Who – the crimes committed are for reasons that make sense at the reveal, rather than just featuring crazy serial killers. I enjoyed this even more the second time round, knowing who the guilty party was and seeing how clever the misdirection is. I really like Jan and her team, and there is an intriguing subplot about Jan’s past relationship with her predatory Commanding Officer which is set to play out over the next couple of books. I have a high bar for thrillers but this gets an easy 5 stars from me.
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