The Last Voice You Hear

Zoe Boehm, Book 2

By: Mick Herron

Narrated by: Alix Dunmore

From the author of Slow Horses and soon to be an Original Series from Apple TV+ starring Emma Thompson and Ruth Wilson.

Oxford private investigator Zoë Boehm struggles with the aftereffects of her violent past as she hunts for a killer—or has she become the hunted?

Zoë Boehm has harbored a distinct aversion to death ever since she shot the man intent on killing her. So when Caroline Daniels takes a deadly fall in front of a train and her lover fails to turn up at the funeral, Zoë wants nothing to do with the case. But Caroline’s boss is persistent, and as Zoë attempts to unlock the secrets of a woman she’s never met while in search of a man who could be anywhere, she starts to wonder if he’s found her first. And if he has, will that make her the next victim, or prove to be her salvation from a paralyzing fear?

©2015 Mick Herron (P)2025 Recorded Books

This book is painfully good.

This is one of the best edge of the seat detective stories I’ve read in a long while.

Great narrator!

Excellent narration! Super compelling characters, amazing dialogue – overall, a wonderful story, beautifully told. Highly recommend.

A book you live in.

If you need a companion to travel with, walk around with, drive with procrastinate with long past your deadline this book is that companion.

You can choose to focus on it and wrinkle your brow following the plot carefully or you can tune out and in as you go about your day then try to remember where you got distracted by a flat tire or the garbage can pulled backwards into the sidewalk and skip back to that chapter.

You can listen to this book forwards or backwards or over and over and you will treasure it anyway.

If you hear for the first time on your library app, you will buy it anyway because you want to hang out with Zoe and you want to wander around in this world with her more than once. Herron’s ability to build the inside world of the minds of his characters and describe them “ a face like an apple that you could drag your finger through” is something to savor.

Humanity

Someone has chosen to write about the true feelings and real consequences of doing harm to others. Zoe’s struggles, depression, PTSD probably, and self examination all seem realistic and well worth noting. Our fascination with murder mystery stories doesn’t necessarily have to be at the cost of understanding the real life implications of such drastic measures. We often root for the good guys and find justification in their violence whether for self defense or to help defend others. Several characters choose not to take aim and/or shoot when opportunities arose. The myriad of ways Zoe & others used alternative methods to disrupt bad actors is creative & heartwarming. I could say much more about this wonderful novel but will stop at what I found most compelling.

Affirmed

My introduction to Mick Herron was with the Slough House series, which I regard as absolutely brilliant and unique. I have never come across a character as richly and fully drawn as Jackson Lamb. With the Slow Horses, Herron entered my pantheon of truly great “spy” authors. He had me laughing out loud — often at inopportune times and in public places.

Having completed the Slough Horse series to date, I returned to the Herron well hoping to pull up more of the Herron genius and started the Zoe Boehm series. Sadly I found Down Cemetery Road awful —- with no glimmering of what Mick Herron’s writing would become (Slough House series) —- and decided to waste no further time with Zoe. When Apple TV brought out Emma Thompson as Zoe, I liked the adaptation reasonably enough to question whether I had been too hasty with my initial assessment of the Zoe Boehm series.

“The Last Voice You Hear” affirmed my initial impression of the series. One spends a lot of time in Zoe’s mind and I found it tedious and slow (with no hint of the wonderful pacing, chaos and acerbic wit going on in the minds of Jackson Lamb and his minions). The premise of the story is passable - if formulaic. None of the characters are drawn with any special feeling, charm or appeal. For the protagonists traveling in harm’s way, the lack of true self-preservation instinct rings annoyingly hollow. Passing up the sure bet we are expected to accept that the characters rely on luck and gender-based tropes in order to survive. I found myself wanting to (but did not) fast forward through the last hour and a half. Thus, Zoe Boehm as a narrated book ends for me —- perhaps Emma Thompson can continue to breathe some life into her in the Apple adaptation.