END OF STORY

By A.J. Finn

Does being someone who writes murders allow you to get away with the perfect one?

The Ugly Truth:

“The past isn’t gone. It’s just waiting.” And what happens when it finally catches up? A.J. Finn, I bestow upon you my utmost respect for finally writing a mystery book in which I truly did not guess the ending. Typically, when I read a mystery novel, I like to be an active reader, Nancy Drewing my way to the end hundreds of pages before our main characters. While I used those same tactics here and drew my own conclusions with the limited evidence provided, I have to say I did not see this going how it did.

However, before I share my thoughts on the ending, let’s start at the beginning, as any good story does (or at least what it tries to eventually get to, as is the case here). End Of Story is a compelling murder mystery in about the last ~200 pages; prior to that, it is a book that only talks about mysteries – to the point you want to bash your own head in, killer or not. For the first half of the book, Finn writes in a poetic manner, using clever description words and dramatic prose to spruce up the endless stream of consciousness coming from our two main characters. He constantly alludes to other great mystery novelists, weaving verbiage from said novels into the characters' scripts like some sort of secret code. I will admit that I spent far too long trying to understand the origins and the meaning behind each sentence, and I almost drove myself mad, definitely ended with a roaring headache. Hilariously, I think even Finn had enough, as he has a side character admit that the most annoying thing about our main suspect of the novel was that he only ever quoted another person; there was never any realness to his own words.

 Once I retired my badge and notebook and began to consume the book not as chief of police, but as a normal, everyday reader, I began to enjoy it more. Unsurprisingly, the part that kept my interest the most in this novel was the characters. Our leading lady, Nicky Hunter, was well-developed and interesting but always kept slightly removed from even the reader despite us being privy to her internal thoughts. Madeleine Trapp provided our second POV, which I found to be quite a bit more depressing. Nevertheless, I still enjoyed reading her own side of the long story, dating back before even the start of the tale, and it was her conspiracies and interrogations that kept me on the edge of my seat. Not to be forgotten, you have the larger than life, well-known mystery author, Sebastian Trapp, to contend with in this novel as well. A man in his dying days with more secrets and more scars than he seems to know what to do with.

 Of course, these three alone cannot make a good book, and I thoroughly enjoyed Finn’s side characters with Diana, Simone, Freddy, Isaac, BB, and Timbo. Most unique, though, was the way Finn made two characters presumed lost, gone, dead by media all around the world, Hope and Cole Trapp, main characters in their own way. While the story was told to be everyone else’s, it was truly the two of them that spurred it all into motion, and in a way, was their story at the end.

 On that note, I will admit that after 400 pages of asking myself “whodunit,” I was frustrated with the ending. I was on the edge of my seat, heavy breathing, flipping pages as fast as I could, and audibly letting out a “seriously” when the knot was finally untied.

 However, despite my reaction to the ending, this book accomplished what it meant to do – surprise.