Product Description

Rafael Molinet Rojas, an inconspicuous Spaniard living in London, feels that life is not worth living when his mother, his closest companion, dies. Hoping to make a dignified and stylish exit from this world, Molinet plans his last days, picking an elegant setting for his suicide via sleeping pills: Morocco's L'Hirondelle d'Or, one of the most luxurious resorts in the world. In the resort, he hopes to forget about his troubles, stroll around in a white caftan, and try to make a little money playing backgammon before he does himself in. But the day before his trip, Molinet has a lunch date with his vivacious niece, who enthralls him with the story of a scandalous and deeply suspicious death. Jaime Valdes, a high-society lothario, has seemingly choked to death in the presence of both his mistress and his wife, but all of Spain is awash with rumours of murder. When Molinet arrives at the luxury spa, he realizes that the stylish woman sitting by the pool is none other than Valdes' widow. And when a throng of gossipy Europeans turns up, it becomes clear that many sinister things are happening at L'Hirondelle, despite its air of tranquility. In this charged atmosphere, Molinet's eavesdropping leads to a startling turn of events. A tale of high-society, murder and privilege, "The Last Resort" is a literary whodunit to compare with the classics of its kind.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #300908 in Books
• Published on: 2007-02-16
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 300 pages

Publishers Weekly
A wonderfully entertaining novel of morals and murder... [readers]
will be richly rewarded

The New York Times Book Review
A juicy scandal... the story drips with venomous wit

From the Publisher
Written by the internationally bestselling author of Little
Indiscretions (Transworld), 1998 Planeta Prize winner translated in 21
languages

Customer Reviews

Excellent - if you like that sort of thing
A book with no reviews on its cover, even in paperback. That should have been a warning, I suppose.

I should admit it, I didn't bother finishing this. I got just past halfway.

It's a curious book. The comparisons to Agatha Christie are not wholly unjustified: the novel is populated with middle-class people and set in a closed environment, not unlike a country house. What the Daily Express was to Christie, Hola! magazine is to Posadas. The prose is, for me, authentically Iberian/Latin American (or that part of the Hispanophone world which values magazines like Hola!), inasmuch as it is preoccupied with shallow people, shallow relationships and ostentation.

There is no attractive character in the book and I found it difficult to care about any of them. After a good start, the pace slows and Posadas gets bogged down in setting the background leading to the central event. She takes too long doing this and lost my attention.

So, good for being Spanish of a certain sort. Well-written and (largely) well-translated. And you may well find you like - or find interesting - some of the characters.