The Last Kid Left

by Rosecrans Baldwin

A family secret turns deadly in this powerful study of how far we go to protect those we love

Nineteen-year-old Nick Toussaint Jr. is driving drunk through New Jersey on his way to Mexico. The dead bodies of Toussaint’s doctor and his wife lie in the backseat. When Nick crashes the car, police chief Martin Krug becomes involved in the case. Despite an easy murder confession from Nick, something doesn’t quite add up for the soon-to-be retired Krug. An itch he can’t help but scratch.

Nick is extradited to his hometown of Claymore, New Hampshire—a New England beach town full of colorful characters, bed-and-breakfasts, and outlet malls—where the local scandal rocks the residents. Meanwhile, his girlfriend, sixteen-year-old Emily Portis, rallies behind her boyfriend, her protector. Rosecrans Baldwin’s The Last Kid Left charts the evolution of their relationship and of Emily’s own coming-of-age in the face of tragedy and justice.

Genres: Fiction, Mystery, Mystery Thriller, Literature, Thriller, Novels, Literary Fiction

400 pages, Hardcover

First published June 6, 2017

About the author

Rosecrans Baldwin is the bestselling author of Everything Now, winner of the California Book Award. Other books include The Last Kid Left and Paris, I Love You but You’re Bringing Me Down. His debut novel, You Lost Me There, was a New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice.

Reviews

[Fran · Rating 4 out of 5]

In the secluded town of Eagle Mount, New Jersey, Chief of Police Martin Krug answered a call. Tequila drinking, nineteen year old Nick Toussaint Jr. had crashed his truck. He confessed to the murders of the two dead bodies in the trunk. Taken into police custody, Nick wrote and signed a confession. Martin found Nick's story implausible, containing many inconsistencies. How could Nick,scrawny with a pronounced limp, have overpowered the victims stabbing Dr. Ashburn, strangling his wife and then lifting them into his truck?

The double homicide of Dr. Nathan Ashburn and his wife was committed in Claymore, New Hampshire, Nick's hometown. When Nick was extradited and placed into Claymore police custody by Sheriff Portis, Martin, newly retired from the Eagle Mount Police Department extended an offer of investigative assistance convinced that Nick was taking the fall for the real murderer. But why?

Sheriff Portis was the father of Nick's girlfriend, Emily. Once it was established that Nick had entered the home of Dr. and Mrs. Ashburn, Sheriff Portis forbade Emily from visiting Nick in jail. Emily maintained her opinion that whatever Nick did, he did for them and that the murders were her fault.

Emily Portis, sixteen years old, was a girl who disappeared into herself. She had dark thoughts. She was socially backward with only one true friend, Alexandra. Nick's love and affection for Emily was like a salve. She felt protected and cared for. After Nick's arrest, naive Emily made a costly mistake. She decided to take provocative selfies to send to Nick in jail, however, the selfies went viral. Nick and Emily now had the moniker "The Claymore Kids" and a media frenzy surrounded the case. Nick refused to help prove his innocence. Emily, misguided by friend Alex, turned her scrutinized life into monetary opportunities for photos and interviews. The reality was that Nick and Emily, two fragile, small town kids just wanted to run away together to San Francisco. Nick and Emily had a similar view of life. Life was all bullshit, it didn't matter. People either got screwed or screwed someone else over. Although damaged souls, their love was the one thing that was real to them.

"The Last Kid Left" by Rosecrans Baldwin contained a double homicide investigation, social media frenzy, rumor-mongering, pornography and pedophilia. Baldwin's overly ambitious attempt to connect all of these elements encouraged him to create too many, albeit unique, characters. The story, though well crafted, would have benefited from one hundred less pages.

Thank you Farrar, Straus and Giroux and Net Galley for the opportunity to read and review "The Last Kid Left".

[Chelsea Marie · Rating 1 out of 5]

Disclaimer: I received an advanced copy of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

After five days of trying, I could not get into this book. My rule is usually to give a book 100 pages before giving it a DNF, but I just could not get there with this book. I was not very enamored by the writing style and language. The shifting perspectives were erratic and confusing, and often hard to keep up with. I found all of the characters to be hard to related to and illogical. After the police officer finds Nick with his car smashed into the cowgirl statue with two bodies in the back, he doesn't think he's guilty? Where does that come from??

To be fair, I did not get very far into it. I made it until Nick is telling the story of why he limps. He explains two his two new friends about the snowmobile accident that happened when he was 16 and how it kept him basically immobile for almost a year. When asked about if he had gone to school, he tells the girls that he had a tutor and got his GRE. Now, for anyone like me who has studied for the GRE, you would know that this is a standardized test to get into graduate school. This is very different than a GED, which I believe is what the author was referring to. Things like this, and this wasn't the first case, keep me from being able to emerge myself into the story, so for that reason I give this a DNF.

[Saya · Rating 1 out of 5]

There's a line on the second to last page of the book that sums it all up for me..."God you must be so bored by now." Yes. Yes, I am.

[Renita D'Silva · Rating 3 out of 5]

Haunting and beautiful

[Russel · Rating 1 out of 5]

did anyone else read "the last kid left" (bc i'll bet someone on here told me to read it only reason i read anything) and welp that is one of the worst books i've ever read like so bad it's hilarious. i might reread it several times. if i had a girlfriend she would leave me bc i would not stop reading passages of it out loud to her. the wish the cops would come back so i could read to them. (sorry, I mean that would make more sense if I mentioned the police were here when I woke up. so i'm uh mentioning that. that cops were here. didn't want to hear about the book). did I also mention how bad this book is? there's a writer at the new yorker who sort of mansplains a woman's article to her and the way the novel shows us that that this is "bad" is he gets fired and she gets a job there but uh he was fired for masturbating at his desk. at the new yorker. I just feel like in this particular universe that is something that happens all the time lol. or like ok this girl takes *GASP* sexy pics for her man in prison and her friend is like wow you are a slut HAVE YOU CONSIDERED KILLING YOURSELF and three pages later YASSSS GIRL taking selfies is empowering YASSSS QUEEN I was just doing it! I was totally doing it I was totally wrong. I feel really great about myself right now. also your pics were like PRO QUALITY (don't worry, they are described, including the one with the headdress where a uh single feather is being put to 'good use') i'm going to come back to this I may add to this review every day for the rest of my life best book ever keep on pushing out the good stuff Farrar, Straus and Giroux

[Lorilin · Rating 3 out of 5]

Nick Toussaint gets in a car accident while driving drunk. Police find two dead bodies in his trunk, and, later, Nick confesses to the murders. It seems like an open and shut case, but police chief Martin Krug senses that something is off. Over time, he has to unravel the mysteries surrounding Nick---and Nick's girlfriend, Emily, who is clearly not what she seems.

I don't read many whodunit novels. But I decided to take a chance on this one, because it sounded interesting. I wish I had read some of the reviews before I did, though, because The Last Kid Left just isn't that good. The storyline is catchy at first but becomes boring over time. I didn't like the choppy writing style either. I know author Baldwin was trying to create something dark and gritty, but it felt forced and one-note. I found myself losing focus while reading, eventually skimming whole sections to get to the more engaging parts.

I still think there is a good story in here somewhere, but I could have done with fewer characters, a bit more levity, and a better ending. I'm sorry to say, this wasn't anything special.

ARC provided through Net Galley.

See more of my reviews at www.BugBugBooks.com!

[Drew · Rating 4 out of 5]

gonna give this one a proper review I think, so stay tuned.

[Christine Heng · Rating 3 out of 5]

I liked the overall story. There were parts that just had too much information and I tended to scan through those quick to get to the meat of the book.

[Jennifer Struss · Rating 1 out of 5]

I can't remember where I read the recommendation for this book, I wish I'd read some of these reviews before I started the stupid thing. There's a week I won't get back. It felt like the author was writing the same kind of dreck he was trying to criticize. I laughed when Leela couldn't get her story published at the end. It seemed to underline the conclusion that I'd just wasted a lot of time reading the whole book.

[Lynn · Rating 3 out of 5]

Wasn’t very interesting to me. A 19 year old is found to have two bodies in his trunk after a car accident. The young man confessed but there is a matter of romancing the sheriff’s daughter and sex abuse. Everything gets on social media.

[Walkerzoo · Rating 2 out of 5]

I didn’t connect with the characters nor did I find the storyline interesting

[Winthrop Smith · Rating 3 out of 5]

There was a book buried here

Not the book that was published, or how the author chose to tell the story. What the reader ends up with is hints, peeks, of that amazing book, crowded out by stereotypes tweaked for the times. The worn out law enforcement officer. The new breed of reporters. New Englanders. Peer pressure. Sexting. If only....

[Zachary Houle · Rating 3 out of 5]

It all begins with a car crash. Nineteen-year-old Nick Toussaint Jr. has totalled his vehicle in New Jersey by driving into a neon cowgirl sign off the highway, while being loaded up with liquor. When the cops find him, however, he has two bodies in the back that belong to a well-known New Hampshire doctor and his wife. One of the cops, Martin Krug, just two weeks away from retirement, takes Nick’s confession — but he doesn’t believe it. Soon, Martin finds himself in New Hampshire on the defense team, trying to piece things together. Meanwhile, Nick’s sixteen-year-old girlfriend is all out of sorts about what happened, and not helping matters is the fact that her father is the town’s Sherriff who has locked Nick up. Nick’s mother, Suzanne, is an alcoholic and is, of course, drinking herself to oblivion. Her husband is nowhere to be found. Leela, an unrelated journalist who has been laid off from The Village Voice, comes back to her hometown sniffing a story she can use as leverage to get a job at The New Yorker.

And that’s basically the crux of Rosecran Baldwin’s’ The Last Kid Left. If it sounds convoluted, it is. This is a 1,000-page epic waiting to burst out of an almost 400-page novel, though those 400 pages do cover a lot of ground. We learn about incest and child pornography, as well as alcoholism and what missing parental figures can do to a child. Really, not a word goes wasted, as things need to be covered rather quickly. That might be the main problem with this book: it seeks to cover so much ground that it does so rather haphazardly. There are literally sub-plots within the sub-plots (such as Leela’s friend Rob, wanting Leela to edit a novel that he’s written) that you have to wonder if the book would have been better if they were expanded upon or just left on the cutting room floor.

Read the rest here: https://medium.com/@zachary_houle/a-r...

[Jeff · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have a low tolerance for murder mysteries and for literary fiction a lot of the time, so a book that effectively does both? I took a flier on this mostly because Jeff VanderMeer recommended it on Twitter, and I’m honestly glad that I spent some time with this.

There are a few aspects to this story – the kid implicated in the murder of two people, the teen girl embarking on a webcam career, and the small town stuff that invariably goes along with such a circus. The book is deliberate in unraveling all the implications and information, provides some interesting characters in the media to sharpen the edges, and provides some answers while offering new questions as well.

There’s a very Tom Perretta-esque feel to this, although this specific book feels a lot darker. There’s definitely meant to be a sort of introspective look here on media and kids in the modern day, and I’m not sure how well it hits the mark, but the full book was still extremely engaging and compelling, and that’s basically what I was seeking out here.

Definitely recommended, closer to a 4.5.

[Vnunez-Ms_luv2read · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is about a small town and three main characters. The premise is good, murder in a small town, with one of the main characters being the sheriff, Nick who confesses to a double murder and Emily, his girlfriend. Too many other characters are introduced at various times which muddles down the story. This is a book that will hold your interest in some areas, and had me skipping pages or flipping back to remember what a certain character did or said. A character will appear in the reading and disappear only to show up many pages after. I took away from this book that there is no rhyme or reason why at times people's words are spread when maybe they should not be. This was an ok read for me. Thanks to NetGalley, the author and the publisher for the ARC of this book in return for my honest review.

[Linda Chavers · Rating 4 out of 5]

This novel starts off strong enough that the occasional odd and awkward phrasing didn' send me completely away. Baldwin's characters are incredible. I love how he consistently contrasted their outward doings with their inner selves usually structured in a BUT/THEN shape.

This also had some of the most dead-on brutal and beautiful renderings of how trauma works in the body. i'm thinking of the descriptions of emily's first consensual sexual moments and how they work to send her back into her memories of rape. when nick asks her how she learned something, when he wants to give her pleasure...

the end gutted me: thanking nick for allowing her to love and be loved in return. the writing really picks up in strength and flow about two thirds into the novel and this will stick with me for some time.

[Becky Motew · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars

Lots of plot lines here and all of them interesting, but maybe a few too many for one book. The author says he worked on it for six years so maybe that's why each character is so fleshed out and surrounded with backstory. Even Rob, the surfer dude with the horror movie manuscript, is depicted in great detail.

I confess I don't know what the title means. Does it refer to a schoolyard game where one is the last to be picked for a team? Or is "left" a verb? Maybe as soon as I post this, it will come to me in a vision, but right now I don't get it.

I also confess I sort of expected a big surprise ending, but no, that doesn't happen.

I like the character Martin, the retired cop with the bad back. He is the most memorable.

[Diane Mitschke · Rating 2 out of 5]

I listened to the audio version of this novel after hearing a review on NPR that made it sound like an interesting summer read. I found it frustrating and hard to follow for the first half of the book, as each short chapter focuses on a different character, and the story doesn't really come together until the half-way point. While several of the characters were interesting, there are long stretches that are pretty boring, and the pacing of the book just felt off for me. I was hoping for a plot twist or revelation that really never happened.

[Brittany Wright · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book wanted to be good--it could've been good. However, the result was a drawn out novel that was overwritten and underwhelming. At times it was hard to follow the characters and their character development. There were fits and starts; well written prose that quickly dissolved into nonsensical musings and confusing dialogue. At times, it like read like a manuscript that could've benefitted from some heavy editing, complete with a check for grammatical errors. Finishing this book was a relief.

[Woosh91 · Rating 1 out of 5]

I struggled through the audio version of this book. 12 CD's. Could have covered everything in about six. Fast forwarded a lot. For some reason once I start a book on CD while traveling I have a hard time not seeing it through. This one ended midway through for me. Could have saved a lot of time stopping then. The rest was just more of the same delving into the sad lives of those caught up in the 'case' with an attempt to link in to the internet driven media craze.

[Laura at the Batavia Public Library · Rating 3 out of 5]

Normally, I enjoy and appreciate a book with multiple viewpoints--I think it adds dimension to the story. I had a problem with this one though--I think the many viewpoints in this book simply made it more confusing and unfocused. Few of the main characters were fully realized enough to provide a clear viewpoint I wound up skim-reading the last half of the book. There was definitely promise--would try another book by this author, but I think this one needed more work.

[Otis Hanby · Rating 3 out of 5]

This could have been a 5 star if it was not written to allude that the reader was already familiar to all that was happening. This style of writing frustrates me. I don't mind imagery, but the start of almost every segment was communicated as if you already knew the back story. I wanted to love this book more than I did.

[Mike Randall · Rating 2 out of 5]

Loved the first two books, especially the first, but this one just didn't feel like a tight story. There were too many storylines that weren't given enough depth, and some that didn't seem necessary at all given the book's resolution.

[Kelly · Rating 2 out of 5]

I'm glad to see I wasn't the only one who had trouble with this book. I didn't finish it. There's too much going on and it throws my ADD into hypergear. Who? What? When? Where? Why? Wait...who, again? It might be a good book for some, but it just wasn't my kind of writing.

[Christina Rause · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not exactly what I expected from the description but still a good murder mystery with some life and coming of age stories at various stages of life for the many characters. I enjoyed the book but it was a bit long winded at times.

[Michelle Becker · Rating 1 out of 5]

NPR, this was, unfortunately, not one of your better recommendations. It could've been a good book but it fell short on many levels: actual story, character development, plot. I read/skimmed after about page 20 hoping that I'd miss something but it just got worse and worse.

[Lisa · Rating 4 out of 5]

Set predominantly in NH, this novel tells the story of a murder from the perspective of a teenage boy and girl, a young reporter, and a semi retired police chief. What was interesting to me about this book was the way in which it tackled the concept of innocence.

[Kim Schulze · Rating 3 out of 5]

It was good, but the ending was kind of blah to me. And there was one section with footnotes that was kind of annoying. Oh, and it's fine to change narrators (a lot, in this case), but me found meself having to read ahead to see who the heck is narrating this bit.

[Alyssa · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book was so hard to get through it took me months. I had to keep coming back to it after talking myself back into reading it. I couldn't get into the characters and the progression of the story felt incredibly slow.

[michele · Rating 2 out of 5]

I was interested enough to keep reading but bored enough that it took me months to finish. And in the end I wish I'd never even read the book. I did not love the writing style and I had a hard time getting into the story. I also did not understand a lot of the characters' choices.