BOOK REVIEW: 'The Last Party'

*Spoilers ahead

Salty Sunshine Book Club just read and reviewed 'The Last Party' by A.R. Torre on the Salty Sunshine PODCAST and we gave it 5 stars. It was a great unpredictable, juicy read with complex characters, surprising outcomes, leaving you with questions about what could've been and what would be.

Perla and Grant, married and living with their 11 year old daughter Sophie, in Pasadena seem to have a seemingly normal privileged life. A doting mother, loving wife, Perla seems to have it all but underneath this facade. Over two decades ago the murder the story of Leewood Folcrum murdering two little girls at his daughter's birthday sleepover and leaving his own daughter with a slit throat attempting to murder her as well lives in Perla and Grants minds. Folcrum has been serving life in jail and begins receiving visits from a doctoral student claiming he's writing a dissertation for school. His goal is to get Folcrum to open up to his motives, a confession and what really happened that night so long ago. We later find out this man is really Grant and one of the little girls killed, was in fact Grant's sister Lucy.

Does Perla know that Grant is really Lucy's sister? Why yes not only does she know who Grant really is, Grant knows that Perla is really Leewood Folcrum's daughter, Jenny Folcrum! The couple met at a memorial for the young girls and I guess you could say 'trauma bonded'? What Perla doesn't know is that Grant has been visiting Leewood Folcrum in jail for some time now looking for answers and what Grant doesn't know is that Perla is the real killer from that night but he will soon find out.

Yes you read that right, Perla is the real monster in this story but her father Leewood Folcrum is not an angel. He was a pedophile from the investigative work Grant does by speaking to people that knew Leewood, apparently he was a creep and his daughter Perla wasn't having any of it. Perla (Lucy) was an attention seeker, the main show, the person that should've been doted on and when her father paid too much attention to her own mother, her mother ended up dead just like her school friends that night at her birthday party. Perla didn't appreciate her creepy father, that she'd grown to have a very inappropriate 'wife husband' type of relationship, giving her friends more attention then he did to his own daughter. So she did away with her friends and when her father Leewood came in and saw what was happening, something he had a gut feeling about his daughter already, he thought killing his daughter was what was going to alleviate the world of this serial killer but Perla survived and Leewood went to jail and never spoke up about what really happened that night.

Fast forward to today, the story opens up, Perla and Grant with their daughter eating at a restaurant. Suddenly, a woman begins to choke and Perla watches gleefully and eventually gets up and pretends to be a doctor, performs CPR until the medics arrive. Grant, annoyed by his wife's tactics that are reoccurring, is not happy on the drive home that Perla continues to lie and pretend to be things she's not even though she saved the woman's life. Perla enjoys the aspects of both lie and death, death more. She enjoys manipulating, scheming, controlling her surroundings and she makes it a habit to tell her daughter that it's ok to lie sometimes depending on the situation and the outcomes.

Sophie keeps a journal. She writes frequently about her mother's behavior and I found it fascinating that Perla never thought to snatch that journal during her elaborate plan to recreate the night of the murders two decades ago for her daughter Sophie's twelfth birthday. Yes, Sophie's mother Perla wants to recreate a triple murder for her own daughter's birthday sleepover. Yes, Sophie's mother wants to murder her own daughter and her two friends to make it look like the same scene from many years ago and frame her husband Grant for these murders, in hopes it would free her father, Leewood Folcrum. Why would she want to do this? Well she's NUTS! and she's obsessed with reuniting with her father and in her brain this is the way to show it was really Grant all those years ago that killed the girls and she can start a new life. She was very excited, went and got a nose job and wanted to look her best. She hired a nanny to plant the idea Grant was having an affair with her. She went to a therapist also to plant marriage trouble ideas as well as the fact Grant was obsessed with his sister's murder.

While Grant is talking to Leewood in jail, he uncovers that Perla was really the person behind the murders and is on high alert and plans an escape plan but not before the actual birthday sleepover night and was thankfully able to intervene and stop Perla from killing the girls, killing Perla instead.

Grant goes to jail but his daughter, Sophie, lies about some of the facts and that gets her dad out of jail. By this time Leewood is dying in jail but gets to meet Sophie, his granddaughter but never got to see his adult daughter.

Perla was a complex character. It's wildly interesting how she liked her daughter and enjoyed her company along with her husband Grant but she was completely disconnected from people. Had no real feelings towards anyone or remorse for her actions. She even claimed she'd 'miss' her daughter and husband when they were gone.

Hope you enjoyed this book and review which we also review on the podcast. We are reading 'The Wedding People' by Alison Espach next. READ WITH US.

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