Spoilers!
I love a clever premise for a book, and of course, I particularly appreciate when the author can deliver beyond the cleverness of the premise. Case in point, Alex Finaly’s 2021 book, Every Last Fear. The premise is tragedy upon tragedy from the jump: A mother, father, young son, and teenage daughter are dead in Mexico. The oldest two surviving sons are Danny and Matt, but Danny is in prison, convicted for a brutal murder of a girl, Chelsea, people think was wrongfully decided owing to a coerced confession. Matt, though, thinks his brother is guilty because he believes he saw Danny using a wheelbarrow to wheel the girl’s body for dumping. Phew. What a premise to start with, and a lot to untangle, mainly, is Danny rightly guilty or innocent, and were the deaths of Danny and Matt’s family an accident, murder-suicide (the father was contemplating his suicide, at least), or outright murder?
Like a lot of modern novels, Finaly’s book quickly jumps from different character point-of-views and across varying timelines, primarily the present situation with Matt and the perspective of Sarah Keller, the FBI agent in charge of the case, and the “before” with the family, Evan, Liv, and Maggie (Tommy is too young to have a worthwhile point-of-view). It makes for a breathless read trying to figure out what the heck is going on.
Complicating matters is a Netflix docu-series that chronicled the case, intensifying the fervor around Danny’s innocence, vilifying the small town police and prosecutors (the same small town the family would have to flee) in Nebraska, and making Evan seem crazed and obsessed with his son’s case. But who wouldn’t be, if you thought him innocent? Danny was clearly coerced into a confession, which is a thing that happens often enough to be troubling. The news is all over the case, especially when the family is found dead in Mexico, and that leads to paparazzi following Matt around. One of my only nitpicks of the book is how unbelievable I find that to be. Most true crime stories don’t reach that level, even with Netflix docu-series. You know how many true crime documentaries and docu-series are on Netflix?! Only some of the most notable cases become national news and to the paparazzi level. Nonetheless, the filmmakers are intent on making a sequel because the Lieutenant Governor of Nebraska, Noah, is set to become the Acting Governor after the original governor goes down in scandal. Noah happens to be the former lover of Liv, and a seeming champion of Danny’s case, i.e., he could pardon Danny. But we learn from Liv’s perspective that she had an affair with Noah that resulted in Tommy.
We also learn from Maggie’s perspective — who was perhaps the best character in the book because from the age of 12, she was like Sherlock Holmes trying to exonerate Danny — that she was nearly raped at a high school party prior to leaving for Mexico with her family to hunt down a probably-suspect clue. That attempted rape left purple bruises on her arms, which the documentary filmmakers take as one piece of evidence of foul play in Mexico. But my one other nitpick of the book: how did her parents not notice the bruises? She didn’t even make an attempt to hide them. Maggie does tell Liv the truth before their deaths.
Once we were introduced to the Noah character through Liv — and primarily, the red flag detail that the house party where Danny was drunk and then the Chelsea killing happened at some point thereafter was Noah’s house — I figured Noah was behind everything. That his support of Danny was a front to distract from the fact that his own son, Kyle, had killed Chelsea. That it was Noah who was messing with the chain of evidence. That it was Noah who hired people to lure Evan to Mexico on the pretense of an earth-shattering clue in his son’s case, and to kill him, albeit, I don’t think Noah intended that the entire family, including his actual son, would go with him and also be killed. And yet.
The three items I didn’t guess, though: 1.) We learn that Matt obviously did see someone pushing a wheelbarrow the night of the murder, and they were wearing Danny’s football jacket, but it was Kyle, thanks to an exculpatory video of the party; 2.) Kyle and Chelsea were arguing over Chelsea having witnessed Kyle and Ricky, another football player, intimately together. Apparently, Kyle shoved Chelsea, and she hit her head. She wasn’t dead though. Kyle and Ricky then helped move the body. Ricky, so consumed with guilt, smashed his car into a tree causing permanent brain damage and issues with his recollection of that night; and 3.) That it was Noah who was intimate with Chelsea, who we did learn early on was hanging out with older men, another red flag that pointed in the direction of Noah, and that she was pregnant with his child. Noah was the one who ultimately smashed her head with a rock in an attempt to make it seem like the work of a nearby serial killer, The Smasher. Instead, because of the inexperience of the cops and Danny’s coerced confession, he was railroaded for the killing. The bloodwork might have been swapped on a bribe, too.
At the end, once all this is figured out, Matt is confronted by Noah (after Matt confronted Kyle), who is holding a gun. He intends to frame Matt (and Danny) as the killers of their family for the insurance money. Matt grapples with him, receiving a gunshot to the shoulder, and then the gun goes off again, I think killing Kyle (I wasn’t clear if Kyle actually died or not). Before Matt can bludgeon Noah to death, Keller comes in with the calvary to save the day. In addition to everything else, Noah was a sick freak because he petitioned to have the family’s funeral at his home. Yuck.
What a fun story, and going from the present day with Matt and Keller to the “before” with Evan, Maggie, and Liv, the former two hot on the case of Danny’s exoneration, made for a compelling read. Even though I highly suspected Noah as the ultimate culprit, I still wanted to see how it all unfurled and connected. Despite how much tragedy is in this story, including Danny nearly being shanked to death in prison (another Noah hit job?), Finlay also included a lot of tenderness and sweet moments. The relationship between Evan and Maggie “Magpie,” as they bonded over their search for the truth; Matt and his NYU friends, who were there for him in his time of need, including not shying away from talking about his family; and between Keller and her stay-at-home husband, who cheered her on as an FBI agent normally in a cubicle working financial crimes now thrust into something much larger and more sinister. It was a nice balance.
I look forward to reading more of Finlay’s books!
Milam's Musings 