Hello everyone and welcome back to The Last page Tavern: The Monthly Brew. In this post we will be diving into the second part of the novel and let me tell you it, it gets better in this part.

Part 2: Page 98-193 (Chapter 23)

Humor

So, I was nervous at the beginning of the novel that the author was never going to settle down and it was going to be joke after joke and there would never be a real moment within these pages. And I am so happy that is not the case, we do in fact get a reprieve from the comedy. I will say there was a recap, which truly felt like an episode recap at the beginning of a tv show. It laid out

I have a quote here. “She’s my mother after all. I’ll just have to get through to her maternal side. Katherine laughed… If that’s your whole plan, I hope you brought a Ouija board.”

That’s funny to me. So many jokes are being tossed at us every page that it can get a little annoying and something about this, how it is tied to the family drama, and so unexpected from the aunt, was perfect.

Narrator

We get that Sherlock-and-Watson vibe. The narrator tries to be smarter than us, which I was just discussing with someone the other day. That is can be annoying because he will quickly switch to being an annoying know nothing guy.

It’s very meta—part educational, part tongue-in-cheek. Now that we’re over 100 pages in, we know our narrator, and he’s unreliable in the sense that he’s part of the family rather than a detached detective.

You might say, “Trevor, you’ve read books before where the investigator isn’t an investigator but just a regular person figuring things out.” True. But this guy is a crime writer who actively looks for clues, and that family dynamic adds another layer. One moment, Ernie and Audrey are finally talking after years of estrangement and then boom—Ernie shifts gear and questions his stepfather about his biological father. The transition felt abrupt, but I get that it’s about building our own case file because, honestly, everyone’s a suspect. The only certainty is that Sofia can’t be the killer because she was in Ernie’s room when the guy died, right?.

Confusing

There’s this gem: “You don’t hear about us locking lips for another 89 pages when I’m naked, if you’re wondering.” Why tell me that? And if my math is right, that’s five pages before a murder. And it just destroys the flow, or shows me that I did pick up on the” subtle” hints the narrator was giving.

Then there was the hint that the names have been changed and that you can get a hint about certain future events if you unscramble them, and that to me was just too much work. I am not great with unscramble puzzles, so I am not going to try. But if you tried let me know!

Brotherly Love

I had a feeling.

From the moment we were introduced to the tension between Michael and Ern, I knew we were building toward trust. It just made sense—Ern was the only one who truly held Michael accountable, while the rest of the family was willing to let things slide. That kind of confrontation, especially in a family dynamic like this, tends to lead somewhere meaningful.

Of course, this book thrives on misdirection, so there’s always the chance I’m being set up. But still, I couldn’t shake the gut feeling that Michael wouldn’t be angry—he’d be relieved. Thankful, even. Their father was a criminal, after all, and Ern stepping in might have stopped something worse from happening.

That makes their relationship fascinating. There’s tension, but there’s also potential for something deeper. It’s not just about what happened in the past—it’s about where they go from here. I’m intrigued to see how this evolves as the story unfolds.

Those chapters, with Michael confessing and finally laying out what he knew, were some of the strongest in the book so far. And then the mother’s backstory? Not at all what I expected. At the start, I thought we were dealing with a full-on murder family, but that wasn’t it at all. Instead, we’re seeing something much more complex—pain, grief, and the ways people try (and fail) to outrun it.

The Mother’s story touched my heart in a way that I was not expecting. Her own mistake brought her fractured family of 4 to 3, all because of the exhaustion of outrunning her grief. She was a single mom, who did work too hard, who loved her kids, but she was forced to stop and look at herself. It broke my heart to see that, but it made so much sense with who she is currently, and why she is so mad with Ern for standing up against his own brother.  

Wrapping up this Part

The tone here is more serious—less humor, more weight. And then, just as we’re processing all of that, we get the email. Now Michael wants to funnel some of the royalties to Lucy Sanders’ estate. His brother’s soon (hopefully) to be ex-wife.

There are still pieces to put together, but we’re basically halfway through now. And I have a feeling thing are only going to get more intense from here.