The Last - Hanna Jameson

I think I may have broken a personal record with this one - 400 pages long and I read it in a solid six hour sitting! This book was recommended to me by a lovely lady in Waterstones, and was published in April by Hanna Jameson. The novel is a post-apocalyptic thriller and is written in a diary format from the perspective of protagonist Jon, an American academic. Whilst Jon is at a business conference at remote L'Hotel Sixieme in Switzerland, news is unfolding that a nuclear bomb has detonated in Washington, followed by bombs in New York, London and Berlin. 

As the world is consumed by nuclear war, all Jon and the other twenty hotel guests can see are the news headlines on their social media. When investigating the hotel's water tank with some of the other guests to determine their situation, Jon discovers the body of a young girl who has been murdered and dumped in the tank - and he becomes obsessed with finding out what happened to her. Soon, they have no phone signal at all and an orange cloud begins to appear on the horizon, so the guests remain confined to the hotel except for food gathering expeditions to deserted and ransacked supermarkets. The atmosphere of this novel is so tense and eerie - it is definitely reminiscent of an Agatha Christie.

Jameson's style is fast-paced and super gripping. You completely lose yourself in the story and the author really builds up anticipation and fear - in part, because the premise is eerily plausible. Contemporary society and our current political landscape is definitely reflected in the narrative. The diary structure (I want to say it is epistolary as the diary entries are written in the form of letters to his estranged wife) means that you become engulfed in the action and really see the horror unfolding through the eyes of Jon. 

My only criticism of this novel was that I felt the ending somewhat plateaued and perhaps underwhelmed slightly. Although saying this, I can say it was a well-rounded end and made a lot of sense given the narrative structure - I was just waiting for something a little more jaw-dropping! With the amount of suspense and anticipation built up throughout the novel, I thought the ending would really leave me gobsmacked, so I was left wanting more than I got. But I thoroughly thoroughly enjoyed this, and will be venturing into more thriller novels in future!