Description
Nancy North is slowly picking up the pieces of her life and starting anew. Her once-promising career as a restaurateur was undone by self-doubt, which transmuted into temporary psychosis. Her break from reality wounded her relationships with friends and her boyfriend, Felix. Therapy and medication helped alleviate the symptoms, but Felix believed a relocation was merited for both financial and therapeutic reasons. The couple moves into a top-floor flat where the accommodations are meager, but the neighbors seem friendly. Nancy is still adjusting to her new surroundings when she sees the hanging body of the downstairs tenant. Whereas Felix and her neighbors write off the death of Kira Mullan as a suicide, Nancy has persistent doubts. Her reluctance to forget Kira begins to unnerve her neighbors and Felix, who fears Nancy is relapsing. Nancy is grasping for a thread of proof and someone to believe.
The Last Days of Kira Mullan is a superb suspense-laden thriller from the creative mind of Nicci French. The parallel narratives of Nancy North and Detective Inspector Maud O’Connor are absorbing from start to finish, as both women must persevere against the frustrations of gaslighting and misogyny. Nicci French has written another stand-out effort.
