Welcome to my Blog Tour stop for The Last Friend by Harvey Church. 

It’s fifteen years since Donovan Glass’ daughter Elizabeth was abducted and six years since his wife took her own life. Since then Donovan has become a recluse, unable to move forward. Life has lost its meaning and hope is no longer an option.

FBI Agent Mike Klein has failed to find any trace of Elizabeth during all the years since she was taken. Donovan’s own desperate and sometimes dangerous attempts to find the man responsible also came to nothing. So when Monica Russell turns up at his door claiming to have been his daughter’s last friend while they were being held captive, Donovan is stunned. Despite Monica knowing things that could only have come from Elizabeth, and her promises to take him to Elizabeth’s grave, Donovan doesn’t know whether he can trust her.

It came two days after his missing daughter’s twenty-third birthday–the knock that changed Donovan Glass’s life forever. His front door. It was a heavy knock for ten o’clock in the morning, loud enough to distract him from the newspaper he was reading in the kitchen at the back of the house. 

Donovan is still unsure about Monica’s motives but the desperation to know everything he can find out about his daughter, and what happened to her after she was abducted, drives him. His need for answers and vengeance, regardless of the cost, fuels his decision, for better or worse, to trust that Monica is telling the truth. 

The story covers serious and devastating topics, including sexual slavery and murder, as well as child abduction. I could sympathise with Donovan, being in that position is unimaginable. Making my mind up about Monica, believing her claims, was another matter. Did she really know Elizabeth? Was she a swindler, a victim like Elizabeth or any number of other things. Her behaviour was so erratic, it was difficult to tell. The FBI agent was another enigma, the relationship between him and Donovan was odd and I wasn’t ever sure what he believed, so the unreliability of the characters and their motivations kept me guessing. Short chapters, which always helps to keep up the pace, and an intriguing story line with suspenseful twists added to the tension.

There was some unnecessary repetitions and the characters came across as unrealistic at times, although the inconsistencies may well be deliberate on the part of the author, but overall I enjoyed the story.

I chose to read and review The Last Friend based on a copy of the book supplied by the author/publisher. 

The Knock on his Door…That Changed his Life

Fifteen years after Donovan’s daughter is abducted, Monica Russell knocks on his door. She claims she knew his daughter while in captivity and says she made a promise to tell him about their friendship.

The Last Friend to hold His Daughter’s Hand

When Monica claims to know where his daughter’s remains are buried, Donovan is immediately committed to doing whatever this last friend needs from him, regardless of the warnings from his family and friends.

The Friend Who Can Help Him Seek Vengeance

And when Monica claims to know where he can find the man who abducted, assaulted, and murdered his princess, Donovan knows he will stop at nothing to get his vengeance.

What Cost Will He Ultimately Pay?

Monica claims she can show Donovan a lot of things about his daughter, but what price will Donovan ultimately pay the young lady who claims to be the last friend to know his daughter?

Book links ~ Amazon UK | Amazon US

Harvey Church has a background in finance, which is how he found himself writing about the people and ridiculousness (sometimes the same thing) of that field in his Edwin Burrows light mystery series. Although he considers himself retired from that field (aka not working), he’s planning another three Edwin Burrows novels for 2018. His first “serious” novel, The Last Friend, is a Kindle Scout writing competition winner and was published by Kindle Press on January 9, 2018. The BookLife Prize called it “an entertaining read for mystery and thriller fans alike,” and said it is “an unexpected and exciting series of events that will grab readers.” Harv plans two sister novels to The Last Friend in 2018, one titled The Last Night (Spring 2018) and the other tentatively titled The Last Survivor.

For fun, Harv likes to practice street magic and spends hours engineering tricks to wow his audiences. He is also an avid hockey fan (Go Leafs Go). As for the boring details: He has a wife (incredible) and two kids (depends on the day, but they’re normally incredible too). His favorite color is blue, but he drives a black car because he read somewhere, back in the 90’s, that radar detectors have a tough time seeing them. Interestingly, he never speeds because he’s too busy singing like nobody’s watching, or maybe it’s that everybody is deaf.

He’s a supporter of double-chins, double-dates, and double-dipping (though never on double-dates), and obviously enjoys writing about himself in the third person, in the voice of the narrator from The Royal Tenenbaums.

Author links ~ Website | Facebook