The Last Minute

Some of these people only have a minute left to live.
The Last Minute takes place in Heathwick town centre, before an explosion rips the place apart, killing 65. Each second is a gradual build-up, adding to the tension of the final event. What will be the cause of the devastation and who will be its victims?

Needless to say, with a death-toll of 65, this really is a cast of thousands and you'd need to read the book in pretty much one sitting to keep a track of who everyone is. This also made it impossible to go into any depth with the characterisations, although Ms Updale did manage to produce several characters about whom I was more concerned than others, and then there were also the two magnificent carriage-horses.

At the end of the book show more is the newspaper reportage of the explosion, which was impossible to read on the Kindle, but there is an on-line site where it is possible to see this: http://www.eleanorupdale.com/minute/ This also completes the book by discussing the possible cause of the explosion(s).

For me, this was a clever idea that, unfortunately, didn't quite work, by the time I'd read sixty sets of one second events, I'd lost interest and certainly wasn't getting tense at the inevitable outcome. show less