Note: Thank you to NetGalley, Grand Central Publishing, and author Nina Laurin for the advanced reader copy of this book. This review will also be posted on NetGalley. What follows is my unbiased review of the book.

Small town secrets are at the center of this novel which takes place in a rural Quebec community. Stephanie O’Malley left the town more than a decade ago without looking back. With a degree in journalism and a true-crime podcast, she returned once before to try and shed light on a decades-old missing child case only to face resistance from the townspeople. This time, she’s lost her job and is looking for a bit of a respite as well as a possible break in the story she previously was interested in. Spring flooding affected the town worse than it ever had before, and during the cleanup, the body of a child was found hidden in the walls of a basement.

The story is told in the “present day” of Stephanie’s life as well as in flashbacks to her mother’s life growing up in the same small town. The chapters aren’t titled with which point of view they’re presenting, so on some occasions, it took a little while to figure out which one I was following. I thought the parallels between the two lives were interesting as Laura, the mother, is shown as having a great spirit when she was young that somehow disappeared. The two women haven’t really talked over the past decade, and Stephanie still harbors teenage resentment against Laura.

The mystery of the disappearance of Michelle Fortier when Laura was young is at the heart of the story, even as Stephanie is coming to terms with how much the town is a part of her. Stephanie is digging into the story as well as the people involved in it but still coming up empty for the most part. I had a number of different guesses, but couldn’t figure out what had happened until it was spelled out in front of me. It’s a good mystery, if a bit gruesome.

The one part I didn’t feel worked very well was Stephanie reconnecting with her high school love, Luc. Stephanie left the night of the senior prom, after a fight with him, and he ended up marrying her best friend, Cath. Cath is more of a frienemy now, although why is not revealed until near the end. Stephanie has to grow in a way she wasn’t able to with the abrupt way she left town, and the two of them easily drifting back into each other’s lives felt fake. They both know what small-town gossip is like and neither of them seem to worry about what it will mean to be seen together so much, except to constantly bring it up.

In general, though, The Last Thing She Saw was a good book. The mystery kept me turning the pages, even if the small-town vibe was a bit overdone at times. The character of Laura, especially, was more complex than she initially seemed and developed into much more by the end of the book. Stephanie had to grow, and did, although I don’t know much about what her future holds after this. Still, people aren’t perfect and not all stories have fairy-tale endings.