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The Last Time I Saw Her Alive
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The Last Time I Saw Her Alive

By: Kate Riordan
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About this listen

Brought to you by Penguin.

THE ATMOSPHERIC, SUSPENSEFUL THRILLER FROM THE AUTHOR OF THE LIARS, PERFECT FOR FANS OF LUCY FOLEY'S THE MIDNIGHT FEAST

It’s been years since Rain last went home.

To many, growing up onthe Tanglewood estate, nestled in a beautiful corner of the Cotswolds countryside, seemed like a dream.

But for Rain, memories of her childhood there are forever tainted by what she saw that summer. The wild party. The body…

Now estranged from her mother, and all ties to Tanglewood, Rain thought she’d moved on.

Yet when another dead body is found in the Tanglewood grounds, she knows she must face up to her past.

Rain has long held suspicions that what happened that summer wasn’t an accident. It was murder.

And now's her chance to prove it.
‘Sinister and sun-soaked. This is a perfectly crafted mystery that I flew through in days’ Caz Frear

© Kate Riordan 2026 (P) Penguin Audio 2026

 Crime Thrillers Mystery Psychological Suspense Thriller & Suspense Women Sleuths

Critic reviews

Beautifully written and dripping in atmosphere, The Last Time I Saw Her Alive is an evocative and compelling suspense novel. The perfect summer read (Lucy Clarke)
The Last Time I Saw Her Alive is haunting, atmospheric, and beautifully detailed. A growing unease pervades, taut and menacing, as the idyll slowly folds beneath the weight of its dark secrets (Mary Watson)
Both a twisty thriller teeming with family secrets and a gorgeously written exploration of childhood ghosts, truths that won’t stay hidden and the many shapes haunting can take, The Last Time I Saw Her Alive is Kate Riordan at her finest. With all the haunting beauty of Midsommar and the intoxicating mystery of The God of the Woods, this story will creep under your skin and into your heart, right to the breathtaking conclusion. Wonderful (Emma Stonex)
Utterly beguiling, Kate Riordan's murder mystery has all the elements I love in a novel: a shadowy setting, long-buried secrets and a wonderfully dark thread of suspense that pulls you through the pages to the heart-stopping conclusion. This is the book I shall be recommending all summer long (Hannah Richell)
The Last Time I Saw Her Alive is, simply, sensational; both fiendishly compelling and jaw-droppingly beautiful. Kate Riordan has a unique and wonderful talent for complex characters, almost unbearable suspense and wildly evocative, haunting settings. I was blown away by this novel (Rosie Walsh)
Kate Riordan is an absolute master of the slow burn thriller, and this is her best yet. In The Last Time I Saw Her Alive, tension, buried menace and lurking danger meet with vivid characterisations, settings and a twisty plot that keeps you guessing. It’s impossible to put down (Kate Webb)
A fantastic voice and setting which reeled me in from the first page and kept me on a hook 'til the last. Creepy and atmospheric. A great read (Mandy Robotham)
The Last Time I Saw Her Alive is more than a thriller. It is a world, a beautifully written mystery within a mystery, packed with vivid characters that feel like real people. Glued from first page till last, I read to figure out what happened, how, and to whom, my heart clenched all the while in the hope that Rain could answer the biggest question of all: that of her very identity (S.E. Lynes)
The Last Time I Saw Her Alive is an evocative, atmospheric, and deeply satisfying novel. I was thoroughly drawn in by Rain and her world, acutely feeling all the push and pull of her home, the beauty of the wild Cotswolds landscape, and the danger lurking beneath the surface. Stylish and heartfelt, I loved it! (Emylia Hall)
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