Suspenseful, creepy and dark, The Last House on Needless Street (Viper Books Allen and Unwin 2021) by Catriona Ward is not only the ultimate novel highlighting unreliable narrators, but unreliable characters too. A nail-biting psychological thriller, this captivating and complex novel is part horror and part crime and will get under your skin in a mind-bending way.
Ted is an ordinary man living with his young daughter Lauren and his cat Olivia. That much is true. But there is a murderer (or more than one) in this story. And a missing or stolen child. And a sister seeking revenge. There is a road with the ominous name of Needless Street that ends in an overgrown forest, dark with secrets, but not necessarily those you at first believe. Whatever is buried there has the truth buried with it.
It’s difficult to say too much about this story without giving spoilers. But I can say that everything you read is both true and not true, it is lies and yet not. There is a thread of dark humour, particularly by one of the narrators, that lightens the mood occasionally.
The last third of the book will have you recasting your mind over everything you’ve read before, and tearing your hair out at the twists and turns that keep coming. The novel is disturbing but the resolution is more horrifying than you could imagine. The afterword (which is a HUGE spoiler; please do not read this first) is a thoughtful piece on mental illness that puts the narrative firmly in perspective, along with the author’s intention in writing this compelling book.