The Last Visitor

A Novel

Martin Griffin

An evocative, atmospheric thriller set on an uninhabited island, where a young woman must fight for survival while she works to discover who from her research team is really a killer.


The island was abandoned for fifty years. So how did the body get there?

Three hundred miles from the mainland in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean lies Navigaceo: a tiny island that was hastily abandoned fifty years ago and has been uninhabited ever since. Until now.

Tess Macfarlane is a documentary filmmaker tasked with capturing the wild beauty of Navigaceo. Accompanied by a small team of researchers, her job is to film everything she sees.

But Tess sees too much: a body. It's clearly a recent murder. It shouldn't be there. And the victim is wearing the same expedition uniform as her colleagues.

Someone has been here already, and everyone on the team is a suspect. More than one of them could be a murderer. With five days until they are returned to the mainland, Tess must be careful—or hers might be the next body found on the shore. . . .

Martin Griffin is a dynamic new voice in crime fiction. Before turning his hand to writing, he was a deputy headmaster and a doomed singer. Martin lives in Manchester, England.

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Endorsements & Reviews

"A real tour de force. The Last Visitor is a perfect locked room mystery, with believable characters, razor-sharp dialogue and a desolate island setting that proves to be the stuff of nightmares. Martin Griffin has created a tale that grips you from start to finish.” Kate Rhodes, author of the bestselling Isles of Scilly Mysteries

Praise for The Second Stranger:

“Good premises can come easy; sustaining them across a novel's length is the trick. Martin Griffin does precisely this, and then some, in The Second Stranger, a Misery-evoking debut thriller set in the blizzard-blasted Scottish Highlands.” Shelf Awareness

"A nasty February storm has cut off phone service at the remote MacKinnon Hotel in the Scottish Highlands. Suddenly, an injured man comes through the door, identifying himself as Police Constable Don Gaines and saying that he’s been in a car accident—and that the dangerously manipulative inmate he was transporting from the local prison has escaped. Remie’s own memories contribute to a sense that she, too, is keeping secrets from the reader. Are any of them telling the truth, and will any of them get out alive?” Sarah Lyall, The New York Times Book Review

“Clever and bold. The Second Stranger starts with a shiver of dangerous uncertainty before exploding into full on murder and mayhem. Anything you think you know, you don't.” Lisa Gardner, #1 New York Times bestselling author

“If there is a finer crime debut this year, it will be a surprise, for this story set in a remote hotel in the remote Scottish Highlands during a blizzard is stunning. There are shades of the great 1948 American film Key Largo as the serpentine story unfolds, and this is not only every bit as gripping, it also boasts a heroine whose resilience warms the blood.” The Daily Mail

“An incredibly fun concept: two strangers both claiming to be the same person. This original and enticing premise kept me glued to the pages, trying to guess which of the men was who they said they were, and what would happen when the two finally met. The surprises kept coming and I could not predict the ending. Fresh, gripping, and addictive! An absolute gem of a crime novel.” Allie Reynolds, author of Shiver

“Break out the superlatives! The Second Stranger absolutely blew me away. This superb thriller is the book everyone's going to be talking about, a brilliant, tense, twisty, atmospheric, and utterly compelling debut from a major new voice in crime fiction. Just read it.” Karen Dionne, author of The Wicked Sister

"An impressive debut thriller shot through with a menace that makes its Highlands hotel setting feel like a house of cards. The tension winds ever tighter as the storm strengthens its grip and the cracks start to show—in the illusion of warmth and safety, the mask of the murderer, and the frozen landscape itself." Emma Styles, author of No Country for Girls