The Last Party

by A. R. Torre

Overview

A loving mother. A notorious murderer. They both have reasons to hide their secrets in a novel of escalating shock and suspense by New York Times bestselling author A. R. Torre.

Perla Wultz lives with her husband, Grant, and their precious daughter, Sophie, in a gated Pasadena community. Affluent, sociable, and accomplished, Perla plays the part of loving wife and mother to perfection. It seems an ideal life, if not for a decades-old crime that has become Perla’s dark and consuming secret obsession.

Twenty-three years ago, Leewood Folcrum confessed to murdering two young girls during a birthday party. Though he’s been condemned to a life sentence, his crime is not forgotten. Not by Perla, nor by an inquisitive doctoral student interviewing Folcrum for his dissertation. He’s getting the killer to open up—about his motives, his confession, and the truth of what really happened on that horrible night.

As the past and the present entwine, the deceptions behind the infamous murder begin to surface. But who’s deceiving who now? And why? And as an ingeniously twisted plan is set in motion, who will be the next to die?

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781662519574
Publisher:	Amazon Publishing
Publication date:	08/20/2024
Pages:	352
Product dimensions:	5.40(w) x 8.40(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

A. R. Torre is a pseudonym for New York Times bestselling author Alessandra Torre. Alessandra resides in Key West, Florida, where she spends her free time on the water, roasting coffee, and doing crossword puzzles. In addition to writing, she is the cocreator of Inkers Con, an educational community for more than thirty thousand authors. Learn more at www.alessandratorre.com.

Editorial Reviews

Praise for A. R. Torre

The Last Party

“[E]ven savvy veterans who predict every twist will keep turning the pages compulsively as the mystery curdles into suspense.” —Kirkus Reviews

A Fatal Affair

“Nothing is remotely routine in Torre’s heady brew of serial murder spiced with fraud, torture, impersonation, and assorted celebrity hijinks…you won’t put it down till every last drop of blood has been shed.” —Kirkus Reviews

“A thriller with surprises aplenty and a breezy pace that includes well-written characters and the singular challenge of looking for truth ‘in a sea of professional liars and seducers,’ this novel is sure to have wide appeal.” —Library Journal

A Familiar Stranger

“A whiplash suspenser that’s a model of its kind.” —Kirkus Reviews

“The author skillfully reveals the characters’ many lies and secrets. Torre knows how to keep the reader guessing.” —Publishers Weekly

The Good Lie

“Ambitious and twisty…Great bedtime reading for insomniacs and people willing to act like insomniacs just this once.” —Kirkus Reviews

“This kinky tale is compulsively readable.” —Publishers Weekly

“A blend of serial-killer story, court cases, and even romance, this is a tricky story that will keep readers going.” —Parkersburg News and Sentinel

Every Last Secret

“Deliciously, sublimely nasty: Mean Girls for grown-ups.” —Kirkus Reviews

“Torre keeps the suspense high…Readers will be riveted from page one.” —Publishers Weekly

“A glamorous and seductive novel that will suck you in and knock you sideways. I love this story, these characters, and the raw emotion they generated in me. I devoured every word. Exceptional.” —Tarryn Fisher, New York Times bestselling author

“Raw and riveting. A clever ride that will make you question everyone and everything.” —Meredith Wild, #1 New York Times bestselling author

From the Publisher

2024-06-15
A children’s party that turned fatal a generation ago seems headed for an equally gruesome remake.

It might seem hard to find two people with fewer points of contact than Leewood Folcrum, who’s serving a life sentence in California’s Lancaster Prison for his murderous attack on his daughter, Jenny, and two friends who attended her 12th birthday party all those years ago, and Perla Wultz, a go-getting apartment manager who lives an hour away in Brighton Estates, a gated Pasadena community, with her well-to-do husband, data scientist Grant Wultz, and their daughter, Sophie. But fans who’ve devoured Torre’s earlier suspensers will know to expect worse developments than they could imagine themselves. The presentation of Perla as an obvious narcissist who’s amused by her own falsehoods is an obvious tell. So is the fact that Lee has agreed to do a series of interviews with Timothy Valden, a graduate student writing a dissertation on confessions and deceptions, but is determined to keep him from learning the real truth about the Folcrum party. And there’s the rapid approach of Sophie’s 12th birthday, which she plans to celebrate with two friends her mother invited for a sleepover. To say more would spoil the revelations and shocks that Torre, rapidly shifting from one player’s first-person perspective to another’s, has planted with her usual diligence. But even savvy veterans who predict every twist will still keep turning the pages compulsively as the mystery curdles into suspense.

The story hurtles to an anticlimactic climax that presses the question: Just how happy did you want the ending to be?

Kirkus Reviews