I started The Last House on Needless Street by Catriona Ward as part of my readings of the 2022 World Fantasy Award Nominees. I had already read the winner, Black Water Sister and The Jasmine Throne before The Last House on Needless Street. I still have two more nominees to make it through: Master of Djinn and The City Beautiful. Although I enjoyed Black Water Sister, if I could choose the winner based on the three books I read for 2022, I would have chosen The Last House on Needless Street.
I was reminded of Osama by Lavie Tidhar; the 2011 winner of the WFA. In both books, I was left wondering what was happening. Protagonists in both books had gaps in memory or odd experiences that weren’t quite explained by what was happening on the page. Unlike Osama, when I got to the end of The Last House on Needless Street, I knew exactly what was happening and why it seemed like not everything was lining up. The little details that I thought the author hadn’t explained became crystal clear as I reached the finale.
I often think that the term spoilers has become too broad and that minute details at the beginning of the books don’t count as spoilers. It is impossible to describe the story of The Last House on Needless Street without revealing spoilers, but I will try here. I can say that as the novel progressed, what I thought was happening was turned on its head repeatedly.
Over a decade ago, a little girl, LuLu, went missing at the lake by Ted Palmer’s house. Ted was questioned in the disappearance, but he had an alibi. The POV in the novel shifts between three characters primarily (with a small delve into a fourth character’s POV at one point), Ted Palmer, a troubled adult who oftentimes has trouble remembering things; Olivia, Ted’s cat that he rescued as a kitten; and Dee, Lulu’s older sister, now obsessed with finding the person that abducted her missing sister. As the story unfolds, little details in each of the POVs stop lining up, leading me to wonder if the POVs are happening at different times. If I told you any more, I’d be ruining the novel for you, and it is something you should approach without spoilers.
Oftentimes, I think myself able to predict where a story is going and I was never able to do that with this novel. If you can, read this at the same time as someone else so you have someone to discuss with what is happening, but don’t be surprised if one of you burns through the novel faster than the other, I couldn’t put it down at multiple points. Not really a fantasy book, in my opinion, this novel would qualify more as a psychological thriller. I will be looking at more books written by Catriona Ward in the future.