Clare Mackintosh's Ffion Morgan series: A Welsh cracker

Clare Mackintosh is a British author with an interesting background. She studied French and Management at university and spent a year as a bilingual secretary in Paris as part of her program. After graduation she joined the police force, first becoming a sergeant in Chipping Norton and later Operations Inspector for Thames Valley Police in Oxfordshire. Mackintosh left the police force in 2011 to become a writer full time. Mackintosh now lives in rural north Wales and has found inspiration in her new town for her detective series featuring DC Ffion Morgan, the subject of this post.

Mackintosh has published ten novels to date. In 2024, she also published a memoir on grief, having lost one of her twin sons to meningitis after a premature birth. I have warmed to Mackintosh's writing and I'd like to read more of her books. She tells a cracking yarn and does a great job of world-building, especially in the Ffion Morgan series. I've also read Mackintosh's deeply personal novel based on her experiences of losing her son to a serious illness some years ago and her Idris Elba-like hijacking story.

The last party | Ffion Morgan book 1 | Published August 2022 | Read June 2024

The last party is the first of two novels featuring Welsh police officer, Ffion Morgan. Unfortunately, I read it AFTER I'd read the second one and I wish I'd read the series to date in order. That said, they do standalone (ish).

The book is set in the small Welsh town where Ffion lives with her mother and younger sister, close to the border with England. There's a fancy set of homes on Mirror Lake where rich people take their holidays at the centre of the action. On New Year's Eve, one of the homeowners and investors in Mirror Lake, Rhys Lloyd, has a house full of guests as he's generously invited the village to drink champagne with their wealthy new neighbours. By the time the new year is rung in, Rhys will be floating dead in the freezing waters of the lake. Ffion then has a town full of suspects and secrets, and Ffion is nursing a secret of her own.

The lake where Rhys's body is found straddles both England and Wales, so Detective Leo Brady from the Cheshire Major Crime Squad gets involved. Ffion had a one-night stand with Leo on the night of the murder and now they must work together on the case.

There is a bucketload of interesting characters in The last party. There's a lot to keep up with, but I could see Mackintosh's smarts and storytelling ability on display. The dialogue is sharp and I loved both Leo and Ffion and their witty banter. Mackintosh does a great job of world-building and, like Hostage, there are many layers to the story. I had absolutely no idea what was going on, but I was completely absorbed in the story. There's a strong connection to Ffion's past that I didn't see coming and the ending is both surprising and a little heartbreaking. I would recommend reading book 1 before you tackle book 2, though. It's a great set up for Ffion's ongoing story.

Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐

The game of lies | Ffion Morgan book 2 | Published July 2023 | Read April 2024

The game of lies has a reality TV show at the heart of the story. Seven contestants are stranded in the Welsh mountains, supposedly to participate in a wilderness survival competition. Each of these strangers has a secret and if another player can guess the truth, the person with the secret will be both eliminated and exposed live on air. The group soon discovers that they've been misled, and the show is about survival of a different kind.

One of the contestants disappears, not something that is supposed to be part of the drama. Ffion has to wade through the secrets and lies to find the missing person, while the TV show forges ahead. Then there is a murder.

As mentioned above, I read this book before I read book 1. I think the books work OK as standalones, but I would have preferred to have read them in order.

I loved Ffion in both books. She's a strong character and voice throughout the stories. She has authority issues, a potty mouth, and is smart and capable. Love it! There's plenty of character development and coverage of her relationship with her mother and younger sister, and with Lovely Leo, the English detective we meet in book 1. I loved the inclusion of George, Ffion's new detective partner, and I hope she stays in the books to come. There's also Dave the Dog, Ffion's new flatulent and neurotic rescue. We have a rescue dog so I loved the canine addition to Ffion's life. Dave the Dogs injects some humour into proceedings 😏.

Consistent with the other two Mackintosh books I've read, there's A LOT going on in The last party. Each contestant's secrets are explored and it takes some effort to keep up with them all. The Welsh setting is again vividly painted by Mackintosh. The sociology of competition reality shows and insta-fame are both nicely explored. Overall, Mackintosh crafts a clever thriller that kept me guessing to the end.

Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐