Told from a few different perspectives, with an ending I hadn’t foreseen.

After a weekend away with her Mum, Stephanie King has had to return to the boutique hotel in order to investigation the murder of Ellis Cobain. Will her people watching observations over this weekend aid their investigations?… Only time will tell.

Another great read from Rachel Abbott.

I like the books with this detective, Stephanie King. You get a lot of story with the other characters and King has a gentle touch with them.
I liked this story of a horrid man being killed with a few alternative suspects.

The 4th in the series of the Stephanie King thrillers.

The book hooks you from the very first page. I thoroughly enjoyed it from beginning to end. I couldn’t put it down. It has all the elements that really do make for the perfect thriller, it’s tense, has twists and turns throughout, I would definitely recommend.

I always look forward to Rachel Abbott books and was really pleased to receive this advanced copy. Rachel is an excellent storyteller but I was a little disappointed with this book. I did enjoy it overall but I found some of the scenarios a little far fetched.
Nevertheless, it is a definite 4 stars.

The difficulty of reviewing this book with objectivity is that we’re supposed to not like the murder victim who was a thoroughly odious man and the world (obviously I appreciate this is a fictional character) is a much better place without him. What intrigued me was that although there were a limited amount of suspects, the author keeps the reader from working out what had happened. We get the police perspective, we’re drip fed the suspects stories and thoughts by a clever use of timelines mixed with up to date events. Just when you think you’ve worked it all out another chapter turns that thinking around. Overall a great read but one that should be read in as few sittings as possible so you can keep the threads fresh.

This is the 4th book in this series and you all know what I am going to say next... or if you don't, to get the best from a series book wrt the characters, their development and backstory, I would always advise starting from the beginning and reading in order. I mean, that's the point of a series...
Anyway, in this, her 4th outing, Stephanie King really has her work cut out for her cutting through all the noise to solve the case in front of her. But I get ahead... We start with a trio of (initially anyway) strangers - Celia, Juliette, and Nadia - all with one person in common; Ellis Cobain. He is a bit of a two sided coin, publicly he is a well respected wealthy philanthropist en route for a Knighthood. But our three ladies all know a very different version of him, a much darker side... They are brought together at a posh hotel by circumstances and, once they realise their connection, come together to teach Ellis a lesson he won't forget... But what was only supposed to be blackmail, turns out to be murder. But which of the women was responsible, who didn't stick to the plan, who went too far?
Enter Stephanie King and her team to investigate... Well, I say enter, but she was already at the hotel with her mum and witnessed certain of the players prior to the main event... But will this help or hinder...?
There is definitely a lot in play in this book. It gets quite busy quite quickly and there is definitely a LOT to unpack to get to the underlying truth of it all. We get to see the investigation played out in real time with snippets from the past as flashbacks to illustrate and progress the plot. This means that the narrative gets on with itself very well indeed. There are the usual, and required, secrets lies and dysfunctional behaviour to be discovered along the way, as well as a bit of reader obfuscation thrown in for good measure.
The characters are well crafted and all play their parts very well. I have always liked Stephanie and this did not change during the book. Ellis was a nasty character and tbh I was almost rooting for the culprit to get away with it as I felt he deserved all he got...!
All in all, a worthy addition to a now well established series that I would thoroughly recommend. And, if you haven't already, I would also recommend this author's Tom Douglas series too. My thanks go to the Publisher and Netgalley for the chance to read this book.

This the first book I’ve read by Rachel Abbott and I really enjoyed it. 5 stars out of 5.
The story is set in a hotel, various guests are introduced and then there is a sudden death of one of the guests.
The book then focuses on the police investigation and tells the stories of three women: Celia, Juliette and Nadia, who all have connections with one man, Ellis Cobain, and all have their own motives.
I hadn’t realised that this is part of a series focussing on the police detective, Stephanie King, however, you don’t have to have read the earlier titles to follow and enjoy this book.
Thank you to the publisher and Net Galley for providing an advance copy in return for my honest opinion. I have also published this review on Goodreads.

A fantastic read full of twists and turns which kept me turning the pages from start to finish. This is a fast paced thrilling read which is not to be missed. I read this as a stand-alone book but will now read the others in this series.
Thank you to the publisher and Netgalley for the ARC in return for an honest review.

From the very start I did not want to put the book down, it was a compulsive read. The three women who held secrets, DS Stephanie King and one very evil man, who deserved to die. The story is full of so many twists that it was not easy to calculate who the murderer was. A sad but well rounded ending.
This is one of a set about DS King but each one is a stand alone.

Another fabulous book from Rachel Abbott. This is the first book I have read in the Stephanie King series but it was a good standalone. Fast paced ,gripping ,compelling, with lots of secrets Many twists and turns very atmospheric and an ending I didn't expect .Thank you to NetGalley for my ARC.

Interesting story, with multiple POVs, and one asshole of an antagonist (Rachel did her job well because that man made my skin crawl endlessly)

Slow burn in places. With the multiple POVs, can be a bit confusing at times having to untangle the different perspectives. I found myself going back a few pages to remember who we were following now in the story.

Some of the characters were dislikeable to a fault with no real development.

The first twist I guessed early on from the hints the author sprinkled through but the ending I didn't see coming at all.

Knowing now this is part of a series with 3 books before it, I can see that our main detective Stephanie King isn't mysterious but more a fleshed-out character that we would be privy to if having read the previous books. Nuances about her detective style and the way she and Gus work together make sense in hindsight.

Saying this, I am curious to go back to the first in the series to understand DS King more and see what is built into her character in this book and her relationships mentioned in the story.

Special Thanks to Headline, Wildfire and NetGalley for this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

would like to thank netgalley and the publisher for letting me read this exceptional book

3 women
one death

a proper whodunnit

Celia, Juliette and Nadia they know nothing of each other but they are entwinned in a crime....

Ellis Cobain is married to one is blackmailing another to sleep with him and the other one is a former lover

he engineers it so that his wife and the one he is blacmailing are in the same hotel at the same time the icing on the cake is the apearance of the other one

what he didnt expect was to be found dead on his boat ....

what a kettle of fish this one is .... full of insighful innuendoes and red herrings galore .... never saw that ending coming at all

brilliantly written and very plausable....cant wait for the next book by this author

The fourth book of the Stephanie King series and this time she is on a relaxing break with her mother at an exclusive hotel in Cornwall. One evening in the restaurant she notices an unusual and extremely tense situation involving a husband and wife and another man. She thinks nothing more of it. However, shortly after returning from holiday she is called by her boss and close partner DCI Gus Brodie as a man has been found dead, in suspicious circumstances, on a yacht moored beside the hotel. Told from multiple POV’s this is a tense thriller and whilst part of series can be read as a stand-alone.

Briefly, the dead body is Ellis Cobain, a philanthropist who has a squeaky clean public personna, but his private life leaves much to be desired. There are three clear suspects, Celia, Juliette and Nadia, none of whom had met prior to the night of the murder, but all of whom had good reason to wish him dead.

Stephanie, Gus and their team struggle to work through the potential leads however, slowly but surely the story plays out, with great twists and turns, until it reaches the most startling finale which I certainly didn’t see coming! You will either love it or hate it but either way it was shocking. A stellar police procedural.
4,5⭐️

Celia, Juliette and Nadia are complete strangers with one thing in common: they have all been wronged by Ellis Cobain. A wealthy philanthropist on course for a knighthood and whose public persona is bulletproof. However, beneath this veneer is a sinister side that only the women closest to him have seen. A chance meeting at a boutique hotel allows the three women to realise what connects them all and they all make a pact to free them from his grasp. However the plan was never to kill him so when his body is discovered, none of them knows who did it and all must keep each other’s secrets. Would you keep a secret for a stranger, if it meant the blood was on your hands?

After reading ‘Don’t Look Away’ last year, I knew I wanted to know how the Stephanie King series continued and I was not disappointed. Despite being the fourth title in the series, having only read three and four, they do work perfectly as standalone reads, with adequate background information to characters provided.

It is a fast paced thriller, which picks up the pace rapidly for the latter section of the book, with the chapters varying between different characters POV. How everything links together is seamlessly entwined in the writing, Abbott having a writing style that grabs your attention the whole way through, making your brain work from the outset in figuring out the clues along the way.

And, no spoilers here, but oh my god, that ending! It is safe to say it was extremely unexpected, my heart was in my mouth and just couldn’t believe it. A very clever concluding twist, which has done the perfect job of making me count down to the next title in the series!

This is a great crime thriller.
Stephanie and her Mum are spending some time together and having a weekend away. At dinner a couple and another man catches her attention and she knows there’s a strange dynamic between the three of them.
A few days later she’s called out to the hotel as a man has been found dead on a yacht.
Stephanie suspects it’s one of the men she saw that night, and she’s right.
We then learn through flashback chapters that there’s three women who could have murdered Ellis - his wife or one of the two other women there who he’d had an affair with.
There’s quite a lot to this story and some twists and turns that will keep you guessing.
A great read.
Thanks to Headline and NetGalley for the opportunity to read this book.

I have read all the series of these books and always thoroughly enjoy the twists and how Rachel Abbott manages to fully immerse you in the characters and plot. Whilst this was was a great read, it was probably my least favourite of the 4. It certainly won’t stop me from recommending it to everyone or looking forward to more,, but I felt the middle section was a little drawn out. Still, it was yet another fantastic book. Thank you to NetGalley and the publishers for giving me access to an early copy of this book.

The Last Time I Saw Him by Rachel Abbott is book 4 of 4 in the Detective Sergeant Stephanie King series. I thought the pace slow and didn't enjoy the writing style of this novel.

We find out more about Stephanie's personal life in this novel. The story has interesting character development to love and to hate. The storyline begins at Morvoren Manor, a boutique hotel on the Cornish coast. Three different women betrayed by one man, Ellis Cobain, a misogynistic, manipulative and cruel man. Celia, the wife, stepmother to his three children, Nadia, the singer and ex mistress and Juliette, the ex lover. The women have one thing in common, Ellis Cobain. They decide to form a pact to blackmail Ellis Cobain and rid him from their lives. It seems things are going to plan until a body is found. The plot at times was silly and jagged.

Although I enjoyed the book, I was a little disappointed and it is not my favourite of the series.

I give a 3 star rating and would recommend this book.

I WOULD LIKE TO THANK WILDFIRE BOOKS FOR SENDING ME AN ADVANCE COPY OF THIS BOOK IN RETURN FOR AN HONEST REVIEW. MY OPINIONS ARE MY OWN.

When I started reading this book I didn't realise that it was part of a series but it was totally ok to read as a standalone.
To the outside world, knighthood chasing philanthropist, Ellis Corbain, was a charming, charismatic man who gave generously to charity but underneath he was a scheming, arrogant character who wrecked lives, using blackmail if necessary, without giving them a second thought.
Ellis had an evil way of controlling people, one of those people was his wife Celia, an ex actress who had had all her confidence sapped and the stuffing knocked out of her mentally, a wife who had brought up his three children as if they were her own and love them to distraction and would protect them with her life, a wife who feared that he would leave her and take the children with him.
Another woman who had come under Ellis's spell was interior designer, Juliette Dalton who had been taken in by his charm when she was vulnerable and now feared that he would break up her marriage to lawyer Russell, the supportive, calm husband that she loved dearly.
Lastly, spirited singer Nadia Shariq, another woman who had fallen for his charm and whose career and life he had wrecked.
Was it just a coincidence that all five of them had ended up in a luxury boutique hotel in Cornwall ? had any of them met before ?
When Ellis's lifeless body was found on board his luxury yacht DCI Gus Brodie and his partner Det Stephanie King had a fight on their hands to find the killer, a killer who had covered their tracks, a killer who had left no clues. So many people wanted Ellis dead but who had got so desperate that they had planned his murder and executed the plan.
As I read this book I suspected all the main characters in turn and others besides but not until the surprising ending did I get my answer. This book has al the elements of a good "whodunit", suspense, drama and great characters.
Thank you Net Gallery for this ARC, my review is totally voluntary.

Three women whose lives have been destroyed by the same man in one way or another, all with a reason to want him dead, if only maybe metaphorically if not literally. Yet that is exactly what happens to the man in question, Ellis Cobain: he is found dead at a newly refurbished hotel on the Cornish coast on Friday morning, where the three women’s lives converge one weekend.

Juliette, Nadia and Celia don’t know each other as they arrive at the hotel one weekend, where incidentally DS Stephanie King is staying with her Mum for a mother and daughter break. However, soon the three women are plotting to blackmail Ellis and stop him making their lives a misery. So what goes wrong and why does Ellis die and who actually killed him?

The case is a tough cookie for DS Stephanie King, DCI Gus Brodie and the team to crack because everything has been meticulously planned and all suspects seem to have an alibi. Nothing seems to make quite perfect sense, yet they feel it has something to do with the three women. Will one of the women crack?

As always with Rachel Abbott books, the story is so easy to read and keeps you guessing until the end. You’re not sure who to believe but it feels a satisfying end to the case as you close the book. I don’t think I have ever read a Rachel Abbott book I’ve not enjoyed and this is no different: another great read!

We get a further glimpse into how Stephanie and Gus’ personal life too, as the case unfolds, which adds a lovely additional layer and links it to the previous DS King books but the books don’t necessarily need to be read in order. If you like an “easy to turn the pages” thriller that is well written, I highly recommend this one (along all of other Rachel’s books).

Celia, Juliette and Nadia are total strangers until they meet at a boutique hotel on the Cornish coast, however they all have something in common, Ellis Cobain. An influential philanthropist, Ellis is an arrogant man that commands a room as soon as he walks into it but, behind the dashing persona lurks a despicable man who has wronged all three of these women. They concoct a plan to get their revenge by blackmailing him, but when he's found dead on board his yacht the following day, they need to think fast to cover themselves, murder was never part of the plan...

The Last Time I Saw Him is the latest in the Stephanie King series and she is brought in to assist DCI Gus Brodie in the investigation as she stayed at the same hotel the previous weekend and may be able to shed some light on the guests involved. The story is told from the perspectives of all three women and goes back and forth between the events leading up to and after the murder. It's a very well crafted thriller and, although I've read and loved all of this series so far, I did find this one quite repetitive in parts and quite slow, having said that, it was still an enjoyable read and nothing prepared me for that ending!

I'd like to thank Headline, Wildfire for the approval, I will post my review on Goodreads now and Amazon on publication day.