The concept for this book of a murder mystery in a dystopian setting sounded perfect for me and for the first half of the book I was gripped.
This small community of people who live a fairly simple but happy existence with 3 'elders' created a lot of mystery and suspense. Lots of questions about who these people are, why is there a curfew, what are they doing at night that they can't remember, why and how are the babies 'delivered'... I could go on. I found the unraveling of these mysteries was done well. However, it was a little convoluted and it sometimes felt like too many ideas and twists to fit into one story which ultimately led to it being a little confusing to read and made the story less compelling for me as it went on. Also as this was an ARC there were numerous spelling and grammatical issues, especially with mixing up character names on a couple of occasions which didn't help the confusion at certain parts.

Thanks to Netgalley and Bloomsbury Publishing for the opportunity to read this book.

I'd enjoyed The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle so was interested to read another by the same author. Whilst both have a sci-fi element to the story this book is set in a dystopian world with the last survivors on an island surrounded by a deadly black fog.
Along with the main character, Emory, the reader unravels the reality of life on the island and the role the scientists, or elders, play. Add in a murder mystery and the voice of a character who first appears as the voice of reason or conscience.and it fast became a mind bending puzzle of a page turner.
Initially confusing, though this made me more curious as to what was going on, the plot slowly reveals the truth about the island and its residents. It becomes a race against time to survive the encroaching fog after a murder and a memory wipe that means there are lots of suspects and a lot of people who wonder if they had done it.
I couldn't put it down - even better than his first book.

Oh dear, I’m sorry but I just couldn’t get into this book. It was just too strange and complicated for me. Thanks to NetGalley and the publishers and I’m sure that there are loads of people who will absolutely love this. Sorry that I didn’t!

The civilised world has come to an end, destroyed by a fog, and all that is left is an island, surrounded by a barrier that keeps the fog at bay.
The people are self-sufficient, living as a community with three scientist elders who are benevolent rulers.
When one of the elders is murdered, and the barrier comes down, it seems that death is inevitable.
But….. things are not quite as they seem, the curfew, when everyone goes to sleep at the same time, people wake up with unexplained injuries, a child comes into the community, an adviser called Abi.
The truth of the island is drip-fed, alongside the murder investigation, and brings everything to a surprising conclusion.
I enjoyed narrative of the book, although some parts were repetitive and over-wordy.

Thanks to Netgalley and Bloomsbury Publishing for the opportunity to read this book.

High concept mystery, melding end of the world science fiction and a traditional murder mystery. Leaving loved Turton’s previous books I have to say i was really looking forward to this. And perhaps high expectations can never really be truly met, but I’m afraid I found this novel interesting, but never gripping or emotionally involving. I was never at risk of just giving up as the central mystery had interest, but I couldn’t really engage properly with the characters. Still, I’d rather read an interesting failure than a generic and boring identikit ‘thriller’ of the month

A fantastic read!
it was easy to become thoroughly engrossed in island life at worlds end- surrounded by a fog of insects that ravage any living thing it touches and fighting for survival.
Set in a not too distant future, where medical tech has enabled the Elders to live well beyond 100 years in good health, the rest of the islanders are less fortunate and all die on their 60th birthday.
The descriptions of life on the island are vivid, from the landscapes to the hardships and the mysterious happenings after curfew, so when the murder occurs it is easy to get swept along by the investigation and feel part of the community!
An extremely clever premise, well told and well paced.

A dystopian end of days thriller set in the future.
It took me a while to get into the story but I was intrigued with the premise of the book which kept me reading

This book has an amazing, unique and interesting premise. I loved the idea of a dystopian murder mystery where nothing felt cliché. Although at some times, I felt this was a bit complicated and I struggled to feel fully immersed, I still enjoyed reading this and I think a lot of people will love this and find this as interesting as I did.

A dystopian murder mystery set in the future. The premise was very good but I found it a bit confusing and overly complicated. Took a while to get into the book, too much initial detail for me. I suspect there are those who will love it but I just didn't click with it. The writing and characterisation are good I just couldn't become engrossed

Stuart Turton shakes up the murder mystery again.

A post-apocalyptic murder mystery, this book opens on an island, surrounded by a mysterious and deadly fog, which has killed off most of the world's population. The few survivors live in a small, self-sustaining village, eking out an idyllic but precarious existence from fishing and farming.

We soon learn that the villagers all fall asleep at night, but one morning they wake up to find one of their "elders" murdered. We also learn that the village is protected by some sort of "intelligence" which speaks to them in their heads but is unable to help other than to say that unless the murder is solved within days, the fog will devour the island, killing everyone.

And so the reader is drawn into a story, somewhat like, but entire different to, Stuart Turton's previous books; his skill at re-inventing the murder mystery each time is amazing. The key elements of any good mystery are present - hidden motives, obvious and not-to-so-obvious suspects, red herrings and clues galore. The characters are sufficiently fleshed out that we want to learn more about them and their motives, and a huge reveal about halfway through the book puts everyone in a new light. While there are quite a few characters to keep track of, the story flows nicely, with only a few scenes which seem out of place.

The book definitely turns more sci-fi as the story progresses, but non SF fans shouldn't be put off - it's a murder mystery through and through.

Fans of Turton's first two books will not be disappointed. Definitely recommended.

This book took me in different twists and turns that I wasn’t really expecting. A really interesting concept yet I thought it got bogged down in certain details and had to push through to finish.

Wasn’t sure how to describe this one.
Post-apocalyptic with an interesting concept? Yes
A whodunnit with enough twists and turns to tax even Hercule Poirot’s ‘little grey cells’? Yes.
A slow start building to a Bruce-Willis-trying-to-decide-which-wire-to-cut-as-the-countdown-reaches-zero-type climax? Yep.
It had a main character I liked and became invested in, a woman who had never quite found her place in her society. Tasked with solving a murder or face the end of the world as she knows it, she navigates through enough clues and red herrings to satisfy even the most ardent Christie fans. And completely baffle me.
I liked the story, and found myself holding my breath towards the climax. It did leave me with a few unanswered questions but overall a very good read.

The last murder at the end of the world is a post-apocalyptic story. A small community has survived on an Island as a deadly fog has swept over the whole planet. What unfolds is a creative murder/mystery in this dystopian world where an omniscient AI can speak in everyone’s consciousness. The writing is clever and the plot is well paced. The characters are all fully developed and I especially enjoyed the Emory character. This is an intriguing and unique premise and a real page turner. Many thanks to the author, publisher and NetGalley UK for the ARC.

A post-apocalyptic, dystopian world which leaves the reader to piece together the events before the end of the world.
There is a raft of characters - I didn’t find them well-characterised enough to distinguish easily - and an intriguing plot with mad scientists and a murderer on the loose.
Turton certainly has imagination in spades and this reminded me of the TV series Lost: every episode (chapter) has a cliffhanger, and what it lacks in characterisation it makes up for in sensationalist drama.
Recommended if you like your sci-fi twisty and turny and don’t mind being kept guessing.

I really enjoyed this book - I read it in two sittings and struggled to put it down. A mixture of science fantasy and a murder investigation.

A murder on an island at the edge of the world - only 2 days to solve it before the fog descends and everyone dies.

Memories from that night have been wiped - so everyone on the island is a potential suspect.

Emory is tasked with finding the murderer by the two remaining elders. She is known to be defiant and questioning - two abnormal characteristics in this society. She is assisted by her daughter, Clara. Together they question the elders and pierce together the events of that night coming to a wholly unexpected discovery.

Niema is at the centre of the book - her choices frame how the island works and is governed. As Emory finds out what she has done she is challenged to find a better way forward.

The other main character is Abi - the AI who enacted Niema’s wishes. She guides and protects the villagers and maintains the safety of their environment.

I found this a fascinating mixture of murder mystery and science fantasy. Really enjoyable and to be recommended.

This novel is set in dystopian world where the majority of the world has been taken over by a mysterious black fog leaving only a single island habitable.
The author has a lot of great ideas and getting them all set up in this novel, took a lot of explanation. The majority of the first third of the novel set up as to the backstory of why the island is as it is.
There were some elements that confused me throughout the novel , the artificial intelligence is referred to in some occasions as a person, and in others as the first person “I” it took me a long time to realise what was going on here. Likewise, they were two first names, Adil and Abi which I frequently confused as I read, and since one of them was the artificial intelligence. This really left me feeling quite confused and I had trouble following the story because of this.

I was left feeling that the author add rather too many ideas for one novel. And some of the sci-fi elements could’ve been left out. Making a simpler storyline.
The author has a clear easily read prose style, and I did complete the novel however ultimately, this wasn’t really a book for me

I read an early copy of the novel on NetGalley UK. The book is published in the UK on the 28th of March 2024 by Bloomsbury publishing plc.

This review will appear on NetGalley, UK on Goodreads, and on my book blog bionicsarahsbooks.Wordpress.com after publication, it will appear on Amazon, UK

Having enjoyed The Devil and The Dark Water- the historical "locked room " mystery set on a ship travelling to Amsterdam the 1600s, a new Stuart Turton book appealed.
In a similar vein, this has the feel of a' locked room' murder mystery but now we venture into a future where the inhabitants of earth have been killed by a mysterious fog; a few survivors live on an island protected from the fog until one of the the surviving inhabitants is murdered. This triggers events that will lead to the fog engulfing the island within 72 hours.
The premise is really intriguing; the island community and a killer... however, this was quite a complicated read. The community work in harmony and their daily lives are organised to such an extent they all sleep simultaneously and often awake bruised or without any memory of events. The people are being controlled by scientists- the leaders.
This is science fiction- not a genre I usually read. The scientific machinations of the island were not always clear ( or maybe I was missing something) At times I wasn't sure who was narrating as each person's inner conscience voice appeared to be controlling them and manipulating their actions/thoughts
For a story with 122 residents - most who are subservient through control- the plot evolves around the 3 scientists and a small group of residents each trying to understand events of the past and how they have lead to the current situation.
This is a fascinating read and will open the door of Stuart Turton's writing to a new audience but for someone who prefers historical/contemporary settings this left a feeling of not fully being to empathise as much as normal.
Intriguing, unique, somewhat bewildering.... but will certainly grab many readers

If you’re going into this having read Stuart Turton’s previous work you will have some awareness that he doesn’t do ‘straight forward’ Crime/ Mystery. The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle and The Devil and the Dark Water both had genre bending slants to them and The Last Murder at the End of the World is no different: in a genre where ‘destination crime’ (typically an exotic location with a group of people each with their own secrets that lead to deaths) is and has been the flavour of the month with publishers for the past few years and shows no signs of abating, TLMatEotW might at first glance ‘fit’, but it is very, very different. Without spoilers, it’s fair to say it’s a post-apocalyptic tale – the apocalypse here coming via a killer fog that has apparently wiped out everyone save 122 villagers and 3 scientists living in peaceful harmony on a small island. Violence is unheard of…until it isn’t.
If you haven’t read Tutton before then this may seem challenging at first – again, without revealing any plot twist details there is a KEY point that is not revealed until around the 40% mark of the book: up to that point there is an element where you have to just trust the author: what at first might seem unnatural dialogue, shifting POVs, omnipotent description etc, becomes clear and very deliberately written as certain elements are revealed slowly. (A few reviewers have mentioned the various grammatical issues in the books - as always reading an ARC, it should be recognised this is an uncorrected final proof – so the typos/ grammatical issues (and formatting) will undoubtedly be updated before publication via line editing, but the style and delivery is most definitely a deliberate and intended author choice – so if you’re not familiar with the author’s work and in the first few chapters are feeling confused/ lost, I’d say just stick with it and you’ll be rewarded).
There’s a lot going on here and ideas/ touches reminiscent of a range of authors including Gibson, Dick, Asimov, even Shirley Jackson but as a ‘destination’ crime novel it finds a unique way of murder + amnesia to create a ‘whodunnit’ unlike any other published in recent times.

You might find this book in the crime/thriller section of your local bookshop when it’s published, but let me assure you: it is science fiction.

This is the first time I read Stuart Turton, but I’m aware of his other two novels, so I expected a crime/murder mystery novel with a supernatural twist to it. That’s not what I got. A more accurate label for The Last Murder at the End of the World would be post-apocalyptic dystopia with a mystery at its centre.

That being said, this was in no way a negative for me. I’m a huge fan of dystopian worlds and the mystery at the heart of this story pulled me in from the very beginning. Every character seems to be up to something in this small society at the end of the world, which presents itself as idyllic and utopian but, of course, is everything but. The sense of intrigue and mystery remained throughout the whole book, and I didn’t see the twists coming.

If I have one criticism it’s that the narrator is an AI software that speaks to the rest of the characters and functions as a sort of conscience. While interesting, having a narrator devoid of emotion made me feel at arms length from the characters, and it hindered my emotional investment in the story.

Okay so Stuart Turton sure does know how to write a compelling story. I’ve thought as much from the very first time I read one of his books. Since then I have read Devil and the Dark Water and the Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle which truly had me on the edge of my seat, and same here. He is my true auto-buy author!

I was immediately hooked. And OH MY GOD. The plot. This is a book you stay up all night reading. Trust me, you will not be able to put it down. The intrigue. The plot forever thickens! You’re left stroking your imaginary beard as elements of the story start to unfold and you’re hanging off every snippet of information trying to piece together the story.

An apocalyptic expanse, all that remains of humanity, a murder and a countdown to extinction. I mean, couldn’t want for more!

I love how he dangles little snippets of information that deepens the story and starts to bring it together but still keeps you guessing. It was another masterpiece!! I will be anxiously waiting on the announcement for another one and any of his future books because they are honestly like no other!!