This book is not very good –  until it is.  It kind of sneaks up on you, or it did on me, and I got sucked into a seriously twisty thriller.  Yes, it starts out with a bang, a family is found dead in their motel room in Mexico. And I suppose that’s to kick-start the story, but it’s not enough to keep going. I did kept going anyway and as I went along I kept getting more and more involved with the characters and what could possibly have happened for this family to come to this end and who did it and what is all this cover-up is about and who’s doing that?  One of family sons is in college and couldn’t get away and an older son is in prison for something – we’re not told. That’s suspicious to start with, but there’s a lot more.  

*******
Every Last Fear
by Alex Finlay
2021
read by Cady McClain , Jon Lindstrom 10h 57m
rating; B / crime thriller
*******

At first, every sentence seemed like a twist.  Then I got more used to the characters and the time frames.  There seemed to be a bit too much extraneous material, but there’s an interesting structure. Alex Finlay is the author’s pseudonym so this may not be a debut novel although it feels like one. 

Except for himself and his older brother, Matthew Pine’s vacationing family is found dead in a motel room in Mexico.  Matthew didn’t go with them as his college schedule conflicted and Danny is in prison for the murder of a teenage girl for which the Supreme Court has refused to hear an appeal.  His father,  is having serious troubles with money and  work due to spending both time and money on his son’s legal troubles.  

There is a lot of fluff in the book, but the main plot is very tangled, too. There are several places where I really had to suspend disbelief and it’s important that crime novels maintain credibility.   That said, it’s compelling in some way – the concept, the characters, the puzzle, the tension,  I don’t know.  
The structure is interesting and helps build tension going back and forth between “Before” (the family murder) and “After” as well as alternating between characters.  There is also a bit of dramatic script inserted because the first crime was made into a documentary.   

Unfortunately the male narrator has a pronounced sing-song rhythm and uses too much drama but that becomes less annoying as the book went on. The female narrator is good. 

Overall I enjoyed it after I got used to it,  but I wouldn’t necessarily recommend it to anyone.