Lead Review (Last Request)

• Book: Last Request
• Location: Bradford
• Author: Liz Mistry

Review Author: Tina Hartas

This is the first outing for DS Nikki Parekh, so the author takes her time to introduce this new character, a woman of dual heritage, who has a blended family and certain family members who need keeping in check. She struggles financially and the author does a good job of painting a woman on her uppers, determined to get through life against severe odds. Of course being in the police force is a hard job in itself, let alone the other issues with which Parekh is faced.

The book opens with a woman dying of Aids, back in 1983 and there is already a hint that she was the victim of a serial criminal, whose mission it was to infect others. She is being tended by her daughter and the whiff of decay surrounding the woman is starkly palpable. Grim, in fact.

Parekh is called to excavations in the city, the car park of the old cinema,  which have reveal a skeleton which looks to be 10 years old and it becomes all too clear that the skeletal remains are very close to home.

There are several strands which keeps the story hopping, though it could feel a little choppy at times. What I really struggled with was the audiobook narration. The voice is absolutely pertinent to the storyline but sometimes – I assume at the end of lines or at page breaks from which the actor was reading – there would be a fraction of a pause as her eyes moved from one side to the other, which just broke the flow; once spotted (early on) it became just too irritating and marred the story for me. Objectively I could appreciate  this novel for the gritty read it was and therefore would suggest picking up the written version, steering away from the audible.

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