The Final Party by A.A. Chaudhuri

 

The Final Party by A.A. Chaudhuri.

Published 25th May 2023 by Canelo Hera.

From the cover of the book:

SIX FRIENDS.

In a luxury villa set high in the hills above the glamorous town of Sorrento, southern Italy, three couples gather for the perfect 40th birthday celebration.

ONE BODY.

Before the week is out, one of them is dead.

COUNTLESS LIES.

Their perfect reunion quickly becomes the holiday from hell when one of the group starts receiving anonymous messages, threatening to expose a dark secret from their university days.

As old friendships are tested to the limit, it’s clear that what happens in the dark past won’t stay buried…

***********

In a luxurious villa overlooking Sorrento, three couples are gathering for a 40th birthday celebration. However, the week ahead is like to be anything but relaxing, given all the emotional baggage they are bringing with them. Five of them are old friends from university. All of them have secrets.

When one of them starts to receive anonymous text messages threatening to expose the skeletons they have tried so hard to keep buried from their student days, events begin to spiral out of control... with bloody consequences. 

The Final Party is A.A. Chaudhuri's third standalone thriller, and this time she goes all out to weave her favourite themes of secrets, lies, desire, contempt, loyalty, and betrayal into a story that keeps you firmly on the edge of your seat.

Chaudhuri lays the ground work with suspenseful flair, moving back and forth between the events of the university days of our old friends, and the present that plays out at the villa. She carefully fills in the detail with vivid flashes of colour that provide seductive hints about shared secrets, and the things that they have kept hidden from each other, in six alternating first-person narratives. In each one she dances very close to the truth without revealing too much, too early, tugging you relentlessly on towards the bloodletting you know is coming. This really keeps you guessing about who did what to whom, and why...

The characters are mostly unlikeable, which spices things up nicely, and there are lots of scenes full of barely concealed, seething emotions, that drip with back-biting snarkiness, to keep the atmosphere in the villa tense and drawn. But Chaudhuri does her best to paint these people in shades of grey where she can, to ensure you know exactly what lies behind their motives, and explain where their misguided loyalties lie.

The reveals, when they come, drop thick and fast in an orgy of moments of sharp clarity, reaching a fever pitch climax of ugly proportions that contrasts starkly with the beautiful surroundings of the backdrop. And if this was not enough, Chaudhuri keeps one chilling twist right until the end to leave you with a final kick.

This is Chaudhuri's finest stand-alone psychological thriller yet, and I found myself transfixed as the plot twisted with each new reveal, unable to look away until the bitter end. If you are a fan of intense relationship dynamics, and claustrophobic thrillers thrumming with suspicion in foreign climes, then this is the book you need this summer - think T. M. Logan's The Holiday on acid! 

The Final Party is available to order now in paperback and ebook.

Thank you to A.A. Chaudhuri for sending me a copy of this book in return for an honest review.

About the author:

A. A. Chaudhuri is a former City lawyer. After gaining a degree in History at University College London, she later trained as a solicitor and worked for several major London law firms before leaving law to pursue her passion for writing. She lives in Surrey with her family, and loves films, all things Italian and a good margarita!