Outside the island, the same deadly fog that ended the world still exists, and it sometimes comes on land, which makes it a constant threat. When one of the scientists is murdered, the islanders lose the only protection they had against the fog. If they don’t solve the murder soon, the fog will cover the island and kill everyone. Unfortunately, the same security system failure that could allow the fog to take over the island has also erased everyone’s memories of what happened during the night before. This means that no one remembers seeing anything — and that maybe even the person who committed the murder might not remember they did it.
The Last Murder at the End of the World works well, and it does so on two different levels. Right at the surface, this is a wonderful hybrid that blends postapocalyptic science fiction with a murder mystery. The elements of those genres never overpower each other. In fact, they complement each other and help Turton redefine the whodunit. The science fiction elements — the end of the world, the AI inside everyone’s head, the gems that can contain a person’s memories, the way people can buy memories to experience things — are interesting and make the narrative more engaging, while also placing the novel comfortably in the terrain of smart speculative fiction. Meanwhile, the murder mystery occupies center stage in a story where new revelations are always around the corner and where nothing is exactly at it seems.
While genre elements are right at the surface here, The Last Murder at the End of the World is also a deep novel about big ideas. Turton delves deep into the way humans tend to fight each other, for example. He also addresses the end of the world obliquely, with only short descriptions of how it happened and a few details about how some of the characters who were part of the original group of survivors fared after the fog killed almost everyone. Also, the narrative deals a lot with control — who possesses it and why and how it often comes accompanied by some kind of dishonesty. The plethora of ideas Turton plays with makes this a wonderfully layered story that’s about much more than a mysterious murder no one can remember.