A brilliant, gripping read. This author never disappoints and it was hard to put down. Thanks Netgalley for the opportunity to read this book.

What a read. It was so well written and covered the sensitivity of mental health and coercive behaviour. I really enjoyed reading it and could not put it down despite it being a bit harrowing in places. Sadly I think all the issues raised could be true to life, and there may be some other Felixe’s and Nancy’s out there. That said it was an excellent read and I would not hesitate to recommend it.

Loved, loved, loved this. I'd read - and also loved - Has Anyone Seen Charlotte Salter - but I didn't realise this book was part of the same series. So, as well as loving the plot, it was an absolute joy when Maud O'Connor appeared midway through the book. She's a brilliant creation. The plot centres around the death of a young woman called Kira Mullan. At first, everyone assumes Kira's death is suicide. However, her neighbour Nancy North becomes increasingly convinced that Kira was murdered. However, as she's recovering from a psychotic episode that derailed her life, Nancy's neighbours and friends (including her partner, Felix), all think this is another symptom of her mental illness. What follows is a genuinely terrifying insight into stigma around mental illness and the vulnerability of patients in psychiatric hospitals.
As well as exploring some very serious themes, the novel is also perfectly plotted. I honestly had no idea how the authors were going to pull all the different strands together.
A fabulous read. Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for a chance to read this brilliant book.

Another fabulous read from this talented couple who make up the pseudonym Nicki French. I read this in 2 sittings and it was great to realise this is going to be a detective series with Maud O’Connor as a strong female lead. She was in the previous Nicki French book (Has Anyone Seen Charlotte Salter?) and I loved her in this so it’ll be great to follow her story in future books.

There are some uncomfortable themes in this book, which lie within the way our society treats people who suffer with a mental illness, and how controlling behaviour can be missed when it concerns someone vulnerable. Nancy, the main protagonist has had a mental breakdown, but when her neighbour supposedly commits suicide and Nancy knows she was murdered, it is verging on impossible for her to get anyone to listen to her - not her partner, police, doctors…….. all believe she is having another psychotic episode and don’t take her seriously. Then just one person begins to think that Nancy may be being very seriously misjudged and an investigation onto Kira’s death finally begins. The story here is absolutely riveting - dark and chilling, becoming more so as the story progresses. Each and every character is superbly drawn and the story has excellent momentum from the first word until the last.

I read this over two longish train journeys, and thoroughly enjoyed it. It's a bit hard to know where to start talking about it, though. Nancy's life has been shattered by mental illness, losing the restaurant she'd started - her life's dream - after a serious psychotic episode. Now, she and boyfriend Felix are moving to another part of London, hopefully for a fresh start. But things go wrong very quickly when a young woman, Kira, living in
the same building apparently commits suicide.

Nancy has reason to believe there's more to Kira's story, but nobody seems to want to listen to her. Indeed, they may go to some lengths to shut her up...

The mental health unit where Nancy is unwillingly detained for part of the story needs to be the subject of an urgent Panorama undercover investigation. I'd hope that Nancy at some point reports them to the proper authorities, because practices there are not only unethical but outright criminal.

It's all too easy for people - the police included - to dismiss anything Nancy says, though, when she's labelled as delusional, paranoid and a potential risk to herself and others. The police in general, apart from one officer - recurring character Maud O'Connor - don't come out of this much better than the mental health services.

I liked Nancy, who is brave and determined in some awful situations and in spite of her fragile mental health. The reader is rooting for her - and for justice for the deceased Kira - throughout.

An excellent read.

What a read!

Throughout the book the characters are such that you immediately took to. As a reader i love thisand it made my reading time really enjoyable. This was a book I didn't want to end it was so good.

The writing and stroytelling as always with this author is just superb

There are enough twists and turns to keep you guessing and I loved it.

Thank you to NetGalley and Simon and Schuster UK for this ARC.

Nancy North, 33, has had a psychotic break and is trying to rebuild her life and career as a chef. She moves into a new flat together with her boyfriend Felix, but soon after, her new neighbour Kira Mullan, 23, is found hanged. Nancy doesn't believe it was suicide and insists she was murdered, but without any concrete evidence and taking her precarious mental state into consideration, no one believes her. The police close the case and even worse, Nancy is sectioned due to the lies of her new neighbours and Felix, having to fight tooth and nail to get out again and prove she was right.

In Nicci French's stories the police on the whole do not get a good rep. They are dismissive, bumbling, idiotic and sexist. There is always one exception though. In the Frieda Klein novels it is DCI Malcolm Karlsson. Here it is DI Maud O'Connor who we have first encountered in Has Anyone Seen Charlotte Salter? I loved her there and I love her here. She gets stones thrown in her way at every turn, from her disapproving colleagues to the neighbours of the murdered woman, and she still stoically gathers her evidence and finds the truth, once she has come in contact with Nancy.

This isn't a simple whodunnit but a psychological thriller that examines what happens when it looks like a young woman has committed suicide and the police can't be bothered to investigate properly, especially when they dismiss the concerns of a neighbour purely on the basis of her apparent mentally unstable state and just decide a conclusion without ever doing proper police work.

I found this a hard and uncomfortable read. I refuse to believe that mental hospitals are that awful and that the police are quite that dumb when it comes to mental health. We know bad people exist but to see them in such a concentration of murder, lies, gaslighting, abuse and coercive control was a hard pill to take. I don't think I liked anyone apart from Nancy and Maud. Felix in particular was just wrapped in red flags from head to toe. He gaslit Nancy under the guise of sympathy and care for her but it was the opposite - he used her mental illness to coercively control her, stalk her and badmouth her to others.

The ending was realistic in that the wrong people took the credit, the neglectful landlord never got a rap on his fingers and the mental hospital continued to be allowed to mistreat people. This made the ending not very satisfactory to me. I'm glad though that Nancy's persistence paid off, and I really hope we will see Maud again in further cases. She could be the new Frieda Klein - strong, stubborn and doing her own thing, not fitting into any mould. I will read anything with her in it.

4.5 stars

The Last Days of Kira Mullen is Nicci French’s best work so far. Guaranteed to fill you with rage and dread in equal parts, their portrayal of the many and varied ways in which men treat women badly was brilliantly done and made for compulsive reading.

4.5 stars rounded up to 5.

This was a brilliant but at times uncomfortable read as most chapters were told thought the eyes of Nancy who has suffered a serious mental illness and as such is considered an unreliable witness when she insists her new neighbour did not take her own life but was murdered. Her chapters were supplemented by detective Maud who initially seems to have little involvement in this. Because of Nancy’s illness it was very difficult to determine if it really was murder or suicide so you’re learning things at the same time she is and it’s hard to see if she’s delusional or not. Nancy was a fabulous character and it came across how frustrating it was that she felt she wasn’t being taken seriously due to her illness but I found it difficult to like her boyfriend and new neighbours, the fact her boyfriend had told all her neighbours about her illness made me extremely uncomfortable. In a lot of ways this was Nancy’s story as much as a potential crime story which made it a very powerful read with many complex threads which were brilliantly woven together.

At times, this felt like two different books.
When we were knee deep in Nancy's problems and Felix's response to them, it was as if there was no Maud.No Kira.
But then there was.
It was all Maud and Kira.
Nicci French have been writing books for a very long time, and they always deliver something good.
This one has some good twists, and I enjoyed the mental health aspect. So you didn't really know what Nancy had seen and heard any more than she did.
All threads tie together satisfactorily at the end.
Good job Maud.
See you next time!

Gripping and brilliantly written while taking on some complex subjects. Characters that had you rooting for them and twists and turns throughout! I really enjoyed this book even though the subject of mental health can be a difficult one.
Thank you to NetGalley and the publishers for my ARC

What a read! Such a difficult subject to tackle, mental health, but Nicci French has done an outstanding job, giving an insight into how suffers are treated by both friends,loved ones and the professionals.

You end up really routing for Nancy,the main character, certainly didn't expect what Felix,her boyfriend, was doing, but it certainly highlights how probable his actions can be in real life, very frightening too.

A complex, very clever storyline, highly recommend.

My thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for giving me the opportunity to read an advanced digital copy in return for an honest review.

I wanted to like this book but I didn't. I think it was totally a missed opportunity.
Sorry if this is a spoiler (don't read on if you don't want to know anything):
I really liked how infuriating Nancys experiences were in the first half and how it wasn't always clear if she was having delusions or not. I also liked how the female characters were all quite strong and well written.

I didn't like how the book was almost an opportunity to move away from stereotypes about mental health units and the police. We know these issues exist and in some ways the book was realistic in showing the systemic abuses and discrimination experienced by others. But the role of other really important agencies were missed out completely.
I get that this is a story and was in lots of ways better than lots of novels but it felt like a chance to give good information, but it didn't. The end as a result felt rushed and stories a bit thin in the second half.
I also felt the love story between the detective and her boyfriend was a bit unnecessary and pointless.

It was a good thriller overall and a bit of escapism but given the number of women who experience similar issues to olga and Nancy, it would have been brave to show what can help rather than just making these experiences into entertainment.
Read through netgalley, for an honest review.

I feel like to sum this I could just say that it's by far the best book I've read all year and leave it at that!

I've been a fan of "Nicci French" books for a long time so always go into the new ones with my expectations high but this truly surpassed anything I could have envisaged. The writing flows perfectly and before you know it, you're completely invested in the plot and can't stop until there are no more pages to turn.

The characters are vividly brought to life and given depth, personality and layers. These become real people, living their real lives and you feel like you're just watching everything unfold.

The plot is genius! It's so well crafted, perfectly plotted out and is constantly moving forward. There's never any waffle or filler, never anything that's not actually relevant, even if you don't realise it at the time

And the twists and turns?!perfectly executed. It really is an honour to read a book like this and I loved every second of it