The Last Party (DC Morgan, #1)

The first book in the DC Ffion Morgan series is set in Cwm Coed, a Welsh village beside Llyn Drych (Mirror Lake) in North Wales. Across the water sits The Shore, a luxury lakeside resort of five timber-clad lodges built on land that once held a Welsh fisherman's cabin called Tŷ'r Lan. The locals resent the resort, though they attended its lavish New Year's Eve party. On New Year's Day, as villagers plunge into the freezing lake for their annual swim, a man floats facedown out of the mist, unmistakably dead.

Ffion Morgan, a 30-year-old detective constable with North Wales Police, wakes that morning in the flat of a man she met the night before and slips out undetected. She returns home to her mother, Elen Morgan, and 16-year-old sister, Seren. A voicemail summons her to work. Meanwhile, Leo Brady, a detective with Cheshire Major Crime Unit, is dispatched by his boss, Detective Inspector Simon Crouch, to investigate the disappearance of Rhys Lloyd, a famous Welsh opera singer who owns The Shore. Leo's ex-wife, Allie, controls access to his four-year-old son, Harris.

At the mortuary, Leo and Ffion realize with mutual horror that they are the detectives assigned to work together, and that each gave a fake name the night before. They confirm the body is Rhys Lloyd's. Ffion tries to get removed from the case, citing a conflict of interest, but her boss refuses. Privately, she expresses relief that Rhys is dead.

They deliver the news to Rhys's wife, Yasmin Lloyd; his twin teenage daughters, Tabby and Felicia; and his mother, Glynis Lloyd, who owns the village hardware shop. Tabby reveals Rhys had reported a stalker to police. The detectives canvass The Shore's other residents. Bobby Stafford, a former boxer, admits he didn't like Rhys. Clemence "Clemmie" Northcote, a single mother who bought her lodge on a secret payment plan, says she has yet to meet anyone who liked Rhys. Dee Huxley, a sharp-witted septuagenarian, mentions CCTV cameras on the property. When Ffion reviews the footage alone, she deliberately deletes a segment from New Year's Eve afternoon.

The postmortem reveals Rhys did not drown: His airways are clear, and he was dead before entering the water. His facial injuries were caused by a sharp metallic object, and ligature marks on his ankles show he was tied to something meant to weigh him down. Crouch launches a murder investigation. Comparing Instagram photos of Rhys's study, the detectives discover a heavy metal-and-marble Rising Star trophy missing from the shelf.

Flashbacks reveal the tangled web surrounding Rhys. His career is in steep decline. He embezzled £30,000 meant for builder Huw Ellis, Ffion's estranged husband. His financial partner, Jonty Charlton, would gain controlling ownership of The Shore upon Rhys's death. Clemmie owes Rhys £400,000 under a private loan, and he has demanded immediate payment. Steffan Edwards, the local boatman, invested everything in his business to serve The Shore, only to be excluded by Rhys. A police raid on a Soho brothel reveals Rhys assaulted a sex worker so severely she was hospitalized. Rhys also sexually assaulted Mia, the local cleaner and Ffion's friend, the previous October. Yasmin is having an affair with Jonty.

Tech analysis traces abusive tweets to a device used alongside Yasmin's phone at a café in Cwm Coed. Arrested, Yasmin admits she sent threatening messages from a burner phone to scare Rhys into ending what she believed was an affair, and that the "stalker" who visited their London home never existed. She discloses Rhys's £1.5 million life insurance policy but has an alibi: Phone videos confirm she was performing at the party when Rhys's smartwatch recorded his heart stopping at 11:38 p.m. She is released on bail.

Leo discovers from door-cam footage that Ffion's car was at The Shore on New Year's Eve afternoon, a fact she concealed, and that she lied about Seren's fingerprints. Ffion admits Huw is her estranged husband, and Leo accuses her of systematic deception.

Ffion eventually reveals the truth she has hidden for 16 years. Seren is not her sister but her daughter, and Rhys is the father. When Ffion was 14, Rhys ran a summer music camp at her school, took her to his mother's outhouse, plied her with champagne, and raped her. Ffion said yes to everything because she didn't know how to say no, her reputation as "Ffion Wyllt" (Wild Ffion) making her feel she had invited the assault. Her parents raised Seren as their own; Ffion's father died of cancer two weeks before Seren was born. Leo holds Ffion and tells her it was not her fault.

The missing trophy is recovered from the lake, confirming it as the murder weapon. Leo also discovers Rhys had been exchanging flirtatious texts with Seren in a pattern bordering on grooming. On New Year's Eve, prompted by Dee's remark that Seren and the twins look like triplets, Rhys realizes Seren is his own daughter. Horrified, he calls Ffion and deletes Seren's contact, explaining his erratic behavior at the party. When Caleb, Clemmie's son, later shows Seren an old photograph of teenage Ffion with Rhys, Seren pieces together the truth and calls Ffion in hysterics.

Distraught, Seren takes a damaged sailboat belonging to Angharad Evans, a local herbalist at the far end of the lake who had given Caleb sailing lessons, onto the water during a blizzard. Ffion and Leo find the drunken Steffan at his boathouse and learn Seren has already taken the boat, which has a hole in the hull. When a distress flare rises from the lake, Leo, who cannot swim, overcomes his terror to join Ffion in a motorboat. They reach the capsizing vessel just in time, and Ffion dives in to rescue the unconscious Seren. On the life jacket, Leo notices an old bloodstain later confirmed as Rhys's, proving the boat was used to transport the body.

The true sequence of events emerges through flashbacks. On New Year's Eve, Glynis discovers the original will of her late husband, Jac Lloyd, hidden in Rhys's study, proving Jac intended the lakeside land to go to her. Rhys had exploited Jac's dementia to have a replacement will signed. Enraged, Glynis seizes the trophy and hurls it at her son when he staggers into the room. Clemmie enters moments later and finds Glynis standing over Rhys. She checks his pulse: It is weak but present. Clemmie lies, telling Glynis that Rhys is dead, to ensure Glynis will help dispose of the body, since Rhys's death would erase Clemmie's £400,000 debt. She drags Rhys outside and, with Glynis's help, loads him onto Angharad's boat and dumps him into the lake at midnight.

Glynis confesses and pleads guilty to murder. The pathologist concludes the assault triggered a fatal heart attack in a man whose health was already severely compromised. Clemmie pleads guilty to assisting an offender and disposing of a body, receiving a non-custodial sentence. Leo, having stood up to Crouch's racist bullying, earns his colleagues' respect, secures joint custody of Harris, and is promoted to Detective Sergeant. Ffion and Seren slowly reconcile over the following months.

The story does not end there. While clearing space in Elen's garden shed, Ffion discovers photographs from the summer camp, a DNA test confirming Rhys as Seren's father dated months earlier, Rhys's stolen hairbrush, and an apothecary jar that once held ricin, a deadly plant-derived poison. She confronts Elen, who explains: She obtained the hairbrush using keys from Huw's house, confirmed Rhys's paternity, prepared ricin into a paste, and brushed it onto the seal of a stamped envelope mailed to Rhys as fan mail. Rhys licked the envelope, ingesting the poison that caused the progressive heart failure that left him fatally vulnerable to Glynis's assault. Elen tells Ffion: "You were fourteen."

The novel ends ambiguously. Leo has texted Ffion asking her to dinner, but she has not replied. In the epilogue, set at the following New Year's Day swim, the community gathers once more. Deep at the bottom of the lake, tied to a heavy weight, lies a bag containing the evidence of Elen's crime. The knot will hold, for now.