A novel of several parts set mainly around EUROPE
Thriller set in OXSHOTT (Surrey) and HOEDSPRUIT (South Africa)
27th March 2026
The Last Place You Look by Nikki Smith, thriller set in Oxshott (Surrey) and Hoedspruit, South Africa.
Hoedspruit is “Safari Central” in South Africa.
South Africa: “Beauty and brutality sit side by side out here….”
Addison and Leo are a married couple who have bought a safari lodge in the vicinity of Hoedspruit, just 15 minutes away by car. It was originally a Lowveld Homestead from the 1920s, which they discovered in severe disrepair. This gave them a wonderful renovation project over subsequent years. Addison is an interior designer and therefore relished the work, carefully curating the decoration and Leo runs a company and expects a seven figure bonus, underlining their affluence.
The novel focusses in on the days before Leo is due to touch down in South Africa to meet up with Addison (or Addison was due to be picked up at Heathrow, it gets confusing) and opens as he enters their wonderful home, only to find considerable blood shed. He had been expecting to find Addison there, but there is no sign of her, only a literal sign which states “Missing”.
As the story progresses there are insights into their marriage, and into Addison’s apparent precarious mental health, which ensued mainly following a car accident, with flashbacks to issues in her earlier and rather difficult life. It transpires – much to Leo’s surprise – that she believes she ran into/over someone on the night in question and Leo is now tasked – at this much later stage – with taking a look at the scene of the accident to see if there is any remaining tangible evidence.
Prior to his trip Leo has WhatsApp exchanges with Addison about her whereabouts, which reassures him
but it is clear to everyone (including the reader) that the interchanges really don’t sound right. He goes to visit her mother (jailed at one point for killing her boyfriend) but she doesn’t appear to be at home. He happens, though, to be looking around her garden for any evidence that she is in residence, when he stumbles across some photos (in a Quality Street Tin in the shed) together with a belt. These discoveries take him off in a new direction. This is clearly an authorial device to move the story into new territory.
There are further characters who appear and become embroiled in the plot, people from their past. It all becomes a complex game of cat and mouse. Who is betraying and manipulating whom? I couldn’t really buy into all the plot twists, which began to feel frantic and unbelievable. The chapters switch between timelines which can sometimes be hard to follow, and makes the story feel quite fractured at times, as it switches back and forth. None of the characters are likeable, they are self-absorbed and hellbent on vengeance.
There is a scene played out in a tree house (nicely portrayed as an incredible viewing point across the veldt, with basic bathroom facilities and a double bed) but at crunch time, Addison notes that (unlikely as it might be) “lions and leopards could climb it if they really wanted to…” (so why build it there in the first place, I wondered).
The author certainly has a good writing style but, for me, there are just too many threads to make this a cohesive and fulfilling read. The setting is, of course, alluring (South Africa, not necessarily Oxshott!) and there are plenty of descriptions of wild life prowling the land. You also learn, among other things, that bee hives are used as a form of fencing to keep elephants away from certain areas (because they hate to be stung).
This is an inventive story set, in part, in a colourfully portrayed South Africa.
#ADPR
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