talk about junk in the trunk
Tilly Turner had it all. She was the opening comedian for a major tour with an upcoming comedy special. She has twin girls and a supportive mother. She was ready to take the comedy world by storm. This was her chance.
But then, the opening comedian got canceled for disgusting behavior, and Tilly was canceled too. The tour evaporated, the comedy special went away, and her mother died. When she left Los Angeles and brought her girls to her mother’s house in Idaho, she learned that her mother had gone deep into debt to help her out. To keep from losing everything, Tilly made a home for her twins at the house and got a job working at the grille at the Idaho Capital. She needed time to grieve, and she needed to take care of her daughters.
Her neighbor and babysitter encourages her to do something for herself, so Tilly signs up for a beginner pole dancing test. It’s not something that comes naturally to her, but she likes how supportive her classmates are. She finds herself relaxing into the dancing and starts to feel more like her former self. She even agrees to go out drinking with her new friends.
But when she wakes up the next morning, extremely hungover, having lost her keys, and with a dead man in the trunk of her car, she doesn’t know what to do. She doesn’t know the man, but she does recognize blood stains on his pants and her scrapbooking scissors next to him. She has no memory of the night before, and when she tries to retrace her steps, she meets up with people who had seen her, but she has no memory of any of it.
Fortunately, it’s cold enough in Idaho to keep the dead guy in the trunk for a bit, so Tilly can keep trying to figure out what happened. But she’s trying to keep her daughters and her elderly babysitter from finding out anything that’s going on. The bloody scissors end up in a police evidence bag before she can stop that from happening, and the dead guy’s phone keeps pinging with text messages she can’t make sense of. And when she meets an ATF agent at Career Day at the twins’ school. Tilly is torn between her attraction to him and wanting to hide her many crimes from him.
Finally Tilly figures out that the dead man’s texts indicate an upcoming attack at the Capital where she works, but she still has no memory of the night he died or any knowledge of how he came to be in her car. She needs to get some evidence of her innocence (or guilt) and certainty that he was part of a group planning an attack before she can go to the authorities. But she has to do all that while toting around the dead man’s dog, dealing with a mean girl from her high school class, avoiding two goons who work for an arms dealer and really don’t like her, and keeping her daughters safe.
It will take all of Tilly’s wits and wittiness to set a trap for the people responsible for the man’s death and for the possible attack on the Capital, but with a group of pole dancers behind her, she just might pull it off.
Last Night Was Killer is a big-hearted comic mystery about a single mother getting her life back. Filled with smart women and strong friends, this novel brings belly laughs along with heart-stopping danger and warm moments of unexpected connection. I have been a fan of Finlay Donovan since the start of that series, and Last Night Was Killer reminded me of that initial wonder I had at such a beautifully told story of a woman getting pulled into criminal plots and figuring her way out with intelligence and humor. I loved this novel, love these characters, and I can’t wait to see what author Mary Pauline Lowry does next.
I listened to Last Night Was Killer on audio, narrated by Helen Laser. I thought she did a brilliant job bringing this story to life. There are so many surprises, but there is also fear, grief, loneliness, and isolation, and Laser brought it all to life. She brought Tilly and all her friends (and frenemies) to life for me, making this such a fantastic experience. This is an exceptional book, and the audio brings a sharp wit and the warmth of friendship to life.
Egalleys for Last Night Was Killer were provided by William Morris, and a copy of the audio was provided by Harper Audio, both through NetGalley, with many thanks, but the opinions are mine.
