The Last Days of Kira Mullan

The Last Days of Kira Mullan is the second book in the Maud O’Connor series but worked very well as a stand-alone novel for me. In this book Nancy North has suffered a psychotic break and is trying to put her life back together. She hears noises at night and is convinced that something is very wrong. When Kira, a young woman in the downstairs flat is found dead, her boyfriend and neighbors believe the young woman committed suicide, but Nancy believes she was murdered. Detective Inspector Maude O’Connor is now on the case and is not too willing to dismiss Nancy or her concerns. Maude is determined to get to the truth and is relentless in her pursuit of justice.

There were times in the beginning of this book where I wasn’t quite sure how I felt about it. I went in stages of enjoying it, then not enjoying it, but then around the 30% mark, I was all in and wanted answers myself. I am a big fan of tension in books, and I enjoyed how the tension flowed throughout this book from those who doubted Nancy, from those who wanted Maude to hurry her investigation along, from the suspects being interrogated, from the boy’s club and how they treated Maude, and from the circumstances of the victim’s death.

I also appreciated how the author showed how dismissive people can be to individuals who have mental illness. How what they share can be swept under the rug or shrugged off as symptoms of their mental illness and not the truth of what they experienced or saw. I appreciated how Maude listened to Nancy and took what she said seriously.

This was a nice police procedural/thriller which kept me guessing and won me over despite my initial misgivings. The Last Days of Kira Mullan turned into a gripping, tense, and thrilling book. I enjoyed Maude and look forward to reading more books in this series.

Thank you to William Morrow | William Morrow Paperbacks NetGalley who provided me with a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. All the thoughts and opinions are my own.