The Last One to Fall by Gabriella Lepore

Book Summary

Six friends. Five suspects. One murder.

Savana Caruso and Jesse Melo have known each other since they were kids, so when Jesse texts Savana in the middle of the night and asks her to meet him at Cray’s Warehouse, she doesn’t hesitate. But before Savana can find Jesse, she bears witness to a horrifying murder, standing helpless on the ground as a mysterious figure is pushed out of the fourth floor of the warehouse. 

Six teens were there that night, and five of them are now potential suspects. With the police circling, Savana knows what will happen if the wrong person is charged, particularly once she starts getting threatening anonymous text messages.

As she attempts to uncover the truth, Savana learns that everyone is keeping secrets—and someone is willing to do whatever it takes to keep those secrets from coming to light.

This was one of my favourite books so far this year. The blurb didn't really give much away as it was quite different to how I expected at first. It's written from the viewpoints of Savana and Jesse and is interspersed with police reports giving some tantalising possible clues into the murder. However, the reader doesn't even really know who died until about halfway through the book.

I really liked the mystery, a lot of things were not as I first assumed and I had to keep guessing and then second-guessing myself! There were all these little tit-bits of clues and I even had to go back and re-read parts of the book to try about work out what really happened. I ended up reading the last half of the book in one go because I just had to know what really happened.

To make a Love and Murder cocktail shake the following ingredients with ice and strain into a cocktail glass: 30ml Campari, 30ml Green Chartreuse, 30ml lime juice, 15ml sugar syrup, pinch of salt.

I must admit to being a little sceptical at first, with this combination of flavours, but it actually works really well. I did substitute Aperol for the Campari as I prefer it and I think it gave a slightly sweeter taste, as well as looking more orange than red.