Book Review: THE LAST WOMAN IN THE FOREST by Diane Les Becquets

Title: THE LAST WOMAN IN THE FOREST

Author: Diane Les Becquets
Publisher: Berkley
Read: February 2019

Expected publication: 5 March 2019

My Rating: 🌟🌟1/2

Book Description:

Marian Engström has found her true calling: working with rescue dogs to help protect endangered wildlife. Her first assignment takes her to northern Alberta, where she falls in love with her mentor, the daring and brilliant Tate. After they’re separated from each other on another assignment, Marian is shattered to learn of Tate’s tragic death. Worse still is the aftermath in which Marian discovers disturbing inconsistencies about Tate’s life, and begins to wonder if the man she loved could have been responsible for the unsolved murders of at least four women.

Hoping to clear Tate’s name, Marian reaches out to a retired forensic profiler who’s haunted by the open cases. But as Marian relives her relationship with Tate and circles ever closer to the truth, evil stalks her every move.…

My musings:

I love nothing more than a wild, remote setting, so as soon as I read the synopsis of The Last Woman in the Forest I knew I had to read it!

Whilst the story is primarily a mystery centering around the unsolved murders of four young women in Stillwater, Montana, it also has a huge armchair travel component to the remote forests and mountains in northern Alberta, where our main protagonist Marian Engström is working as part of a project to protect endangered wildlife. It is here that she meets and falls in love with her mentor, the mysterious Tate. She is devastated to learn that Tate has died in a gruesome attack by a brown bear whilst on another assignment. Trying to come to terms with her grief and in an effort to consolidate some aspects about the stories Tate has told her about himself, she is looking deeper into her dead lover’s life – only to come to a terrifying conclusion: could Tate have been involved in the murders of the Stillwater victims?

As soon as I started reading, the author’s love for her chosen setting became obvious as I was instantly teleported into a wintry forest landscape where bears, moose and caribou roamed and humans were at the mercy of the elements. I loved the way Les Becquets brings this setting to life – this really was armchair travel of the best kind! I wasn’t surprised to learn that the author is an avid outdoors enthusiast, because her descriptions were vivid and beautiful – and at times terrifying! I also loved her knowledge on how to train rescue dogs, who were involved in Marian’s research projects. Any dog lover will appreciate the little snippets of observations on dog behaviour and training that run throughout the entire storyline.

Whilst the setting immediately drew me in, the mystery part of the story did not work so well for me. I am putting this down mainly to the structure of the story, which rolls out in two separate timelines told in Marian’s POV as well as short chapters introducing each of the female murder victims and the circumstances surrounding their disappearance. Then there are the chapters from the POV of retired forensic profiler Nick, who is helping Marian with her investigations into Tate’s life. I felt that some important information was withheld until close to the halfway mark, which would have explained Marian’s suspicions and made her character more accessible for me. I felt that the author perhaps tried to pack too much into the story, resulting in showing rather than telling as she tried to deliver chunks of information instead of letting them play out. I also would have preferred some vivid dialogue rather than long rambling sentences summarising people’s conversations, which interrupted the story’s flow and always kept the character’s at arms’ length. Whilst the pacing was slow going in the first half of the book, I was happy to see that the author seemed to find her place in the second half, which delivered the aspects of the mystery so far lacking in the book.

Overall though I felt that suspense was lacking for me, despite a setting that practically cried out to be used for its full claustrophobic potential. Slow burning and character driven mysteries rely a lot on character development and underlying tension and suspense, which was missing here. So whilst I felt that the overall plot was original and clever, it did not live up to its full potential. A bit of editing would have done wonders here, by rearranging parts of the timeline, tidying up the story, chopping out huge chunks of back info that weren’t relevant and instead allowing a closer connection to the main characters.

I really enjoyed reading the afterword, in which the author explains what inspired her to write The Last Woman in the Forest and about her own life experiences. So, whilst this one didn’t quite work for me, I feel that the author has some great stories to tell and I look forward to reading more from her in future.

Thank you to Edelweiss and Berkley Publishing for the free electronic copy of this novel and for giving me the opportunity to provide an honest review.