If you read my review of Turton’s The 7½ Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle, you already know he has a gift for the audaciously inventive. Consider that gift fully intact.

Decades after a deadly fog has consumed everything but one small island near what was once Greece, what remains of humanity faces an impossible task: solve a murder—or face certain extinction. The catch? Everyone’s memories of the events leading up to the crime have been wiped clean. Oh, and the clock is already running: 107 hours and counting.

On the surface, life on the island is idyllic. Villagers fish, farm, and feast in peaceful harmony under the watchful guidance of three elders. The only visible distinction between the elders and their community is height—but as the investigation unfolds, Emory (blessed, or perhaps cursed, with a curiosity largely absent among the other villagers) begins uncovering layer after shocking layer of truth that changes absolutely everything.

Past mysteries resurface as Emory pieces together new information, and the story expands outward—drawing readers into the history of the world’s unraveling even as the present hurtles toward either total extinction or the possibility of something entirely new.

The ticking deadline practically becomes a character in its own right, an urgent presence that propels you forward, daring you to uncover the clues and solve the last murder at the end of the world before time runs out.