Book Review: Last One Alive by Jennifer Graeser Dornbush

Dr. Emily Hartford is at a crossroads in her life. About to finish her medical residency, she’s being wooed to take over her mentor’s private surgery practice in Chicago. Her business partner-to-be is her ex-fiance Brandon, who’s looking to rekindle their romance as well. Emily herself is beginning to recover from the grief of accepting that her latest flame is missing in action overseas and likely dead, so isn’t entirely averse to Brandon’s attentions.

So the last thing that Emily expects is for a woman named Solange McClelland to contact her out of the blue, asking about her father’s autopsy reports. Dr Robert Hartford was the coroner for Freeport County, Michigan up until his fairly recent death. As a child, Emily had assisted in his morgue, birthing a lifelong love for justice via medicine.

About twelve years ago, a shocking triple homicide rocked Freeport. The McClelland family was slain in their lakeside home, in what was deemed a murder suicide. Solange was the only member of the family to escape the carnage, having spent the night at a friend’s house. She found the bodies upon returning  home the next morning, and spent the next decade or so trying to get past the trauma of being the only survivor.

Recent information, however, has shown her that everything she thought she knew about that grisly night was wrong. Her father Sebastian was long blamed for killing his wife and son before turning his shotgun on himself. Solange never wanted to believe that, and with new evidence in hand wants to take a closer look at the autopsy reports.

Emily knows that her father was a professional through and through, and is happy to take a look at the case files in order to assure Solange that everything was done exactly as it should have been. So she’s pretty surprised to find that the McClelland case has been flagged in her father’s records. The more she reads, the more unnerved she becomes at finding herself agreeing with Solange’s suspicions. With Solange’s backing, Emily performs an autopsy on Sebastian’s exhumed remains:

Sebastian’s matted dreads were not only thick but heavy. If not intentionally held up and moved aside to expose the neck, an examiner would not have noticed this gunshot wound. Additionally, the entrance wound for a .22 was small. A would like this would not have bled much, and Sebastian’s hair would have soaked up any blood that did flow from the small hole. There was another gruesome consideration: this small entrance wound might have been overlooked amid the gory mess of Sebastian’s head being blown off by a shotgun. Flaps of skin, brain matter, skull might have distracted attention from a tiny, insignificant bullet wound. Of course this was no excuse for not examining the entirety of the body–something she knew her father would have done. Why hadn’t he?

Determined to get to the bottom of her father’s uncharacteristic behavior, Emily begins to investigate, uncovering disturbing information about the McClelland case in the process. While she and Solange quickly strike up a friendship, their bond is tested when their separate inquiries lead Solange down an increasingly dark path. Will Emily be able to save her new friend before a killer who’s been lying in wait for over a decade strikes again?

Emily’s turmoil over the many directions in which she’s being pulled ground the plot twists in realism. She’s supposed to be a surgeon in Chicago, not a volunteer coroner in Freeport, as her colleagues and friends are only too happy to point out. She’s not even sure how to answer when family friend Delia asks if Emily is truly happy:

Happy? She was too tired to decide if she was happy or not.

 

“It’s a full life, that’s for sure,” said Emily.

 

“That’s not what I asked,” said Delia.

 

“I’m happy with my choice. How’s that?”

 

“I accept that. And I know your dad and mom would be proud of your accomplishments,” said Delia. “But they’d also want you to live life all the way up.”

 

All the way up. Emily loved that Delia used that phrase. It described how Delia had always lived her life. Glass half full. No regrets. Big adventures. Every challenge an opportunity.

 

“I’d like to think I’m doing that,” said Emily.

With plenty of twists and turns, Last One Alive is a well fleshed out portrait of two daughters, Solange and Emily, who will risk everything to ensure that their fathers are known to the world as the good, upstanding people their daughters are so familiar with. It ends on a stunning cliffhanger that will hook series fans, who will surely clamor for the next installment of these small town but wide-ranging procedural thrillers.