"Originally published in the United Kingdom as The octopus by Hodder & Stoughton, an Hachette UK company, London in 2020"-- Back of title page.

When actress Elspeth Bell attends the fiftieth birthday party of her ex-husband Richard Bryant, the famous Hollywood director who launched her career, all she wants is to pass unnoticed through the glamorous crowd in his sprawling Los Angeles mansion. Instead, there are just seven other guests and Richard's pet octopus, Persephone, watching over them from her tank as the intimate party grows more surreal (and rowdy) by the hour. Come morning, Richard is dead-- and all of the guests are suspects. In the weeks that follow, each of the guests come under suspicion: the school friend, the studio producer, the actress, the actor, the new partner, the manager, the cinematographer, and even Elspeth herself. What starts out as a locked-room mystery soon reveals itself to be much more complicated, as dark stories from Richard's past surface, colliding with memories of their marriage that Elspeth vowed never to revisit. Elspeth begins to wonder not just who killed Richard, but why these eight guests were invited, and what sort of man would desire to possess a creature as mysterious and unsettling as Persephone. From the Hollywood Hills to the marshes of Norfolk, The Last Guest is a stylish exploration of power-- the power of memory, the power of perception, the power of one person over another-- that will leave you questioning every truth you tell yourself.