Written by Taylor Adams in 2023, The Last Word follows Emma, who tries to process her grief after the loss of her infant daughter, experiencing visions and hauntings while being attacked by H.G. Kane, the author of a cheap e-book that she negatively reviewed. The Last Word blends the genres of thriller, mystery, and horror, and Adams uses the literary device of a story-within-a-story to critique the craft of writing and create a deft interplay between fiction and reality.

The Last Word has been recognized as the Amazon Editor’s Pick for May 2023 and as one of the Sun Sentinel’s chosen best mystery fiction books of 2023. However, Adams’s most well-known work is No Exit, which was published in 2017 and adapted into an original Hulu film in 2022.

This guide refers to the 2023 large print edition published by Harper Collins.

Content Warning: This guide describes and discusses the source text’s treatment of mental health conditions, suicidal ideation, child death, and substance use disorder.

Plot Summary

Five months after the car accident that killed her infant daughter, Emma Carpenter leaves Salt Lake City and takes a housesitting gig in Strand Beach. She communicates with the owner of the house, Jules, via text message, and talks with the next-door neighbor, Deek, via whiteboard messages seen through their respective telescopes. Deek, a retired writer, suggests that Emma read a cheap eBook by H.G. Kane, titled Murder Mountain. Emma hates the book and leaves a negative online review.

Kane responds to her review and demands that she take it down, but Emma refuses. When she walks her dog, Laika, on the beach, Laika eats a cut of meat that Kane has booby-trapped with fishhooks. Later, someone rings the doorbell, and when Jules looks at the doorbell camera footage, she sees a person wearing a Halloween demon mask, so she contacts the police and orders a stun gun to be delivered to the house for Emma. Emma also thinks that someone is in the bedroom, watching her while she sleeps.

The next evening, Kane comes to the door, covers the peephole, and pretends to be Deek. Emma believes him at first but eventually realizes who he is. Kane reads Emma’s scathing review of his book aloud and claims to be working on a book about killing her. He calls the book Murder Beach. Throughout the narrative, excerpts from a draft of this book (actually written by Deek) are interspersed with sections that portray Emma’s point of view.

Beginning his attack, Kane cuts the phone lines and Wi-Fi, disables Emma’s car, and feeds Laika poisoned meat. After Emma realizes that she is stuck in the house with no way to help her poisoned dog, she uses the whiteboard to ask Deek for help. Then, Emma turns off all the lights in the house and becomes aware that Kane is standing just outside with a sword and a pellet gun. Kane shoots out the motion sensor lights. Meanwhile, Emma tries to induce Laika to vomit. When Kane breaks in, Emma barricades herself with Laika in the master bedroom and has visions and memories of her husband, Shawn. (Kane believes that Shawn is dead, but it is later revealed that Shawn is alive.)

Jake, the delivery driver bringing the taser from Jules, arrives as Emma is hiding with Laika. Pretending to be the police, Kane threatens and overpowers Jake. Emma goes outside and asks Kane to spare Jake, but Kane dismembers Jake with his sword. Emma retreats into the house.

The narrative shifts to an excerpt from Murder Beach, which recounts Kane’s first kill, Laura Birch, when they were both in high school.

Back in the present moment, Deek helps Emma track Kane’s movements but loses sight of him. On the whiteboard, Deek claims that Kane is a superfan who used to stalk him and that Kane’s real name is Howard.

Kane finds Emma in the house, but Deek sets off fireworks to distract Kane, and Emma escapes. She finds a hammer and lures him into the basement, where his sword gets stuck in a support column. Emma retreats upstairs and arms herself with a screwdriver. When Deek comes over, Emma accidentally stabs him in the neck instead of Kane. The police arrive, acting in response to Jules’s request for a wellness check, closely followed by Jules herself. Kane threatens Deek to keep Emma from telling the police the truth of her current situation and Emma dissembles, telling them that she is struggling with the loss of a loved one. As the police officers and Jules leave, Emma mouths Kane’s real name to Jules.

Kane cries and says that killing Laura was accidental. Then, Kane asks Emma to be his girlfriend and run away with him. He says that he doesn’t want to kill Emma as he has been ordered to do, although he does not reveal who has given him this order. Deek comes to and points his gun at Kane, and Emma takes Kane’s sword and pellet gun. Kane claims that he will kill them all.

Jules arrives and reveals that Kane is her son. In the past, Kane stalked Deek, believing that Deek should act as his writing mentor, but Deek harshly condemned Kane’s attempts at writing. Now, Deek admits that his criticism of Kane’s writing incited an internal crisis that led Kane to kill Laura. (Kane tied Laura up, and she asphyxiated when she tried to get free.) Emma tells Jules that Kane killed Jake, and Deek tells both women to get help. Emma gathers the keys to Kane’s car and the delivery vehicle, but Jules refuses to leave; she gives her keys to Emma as well. As Emma leaves, she admits that she suspected Deek of working with Kane but she claims that she now trusts him. Kane suddenly lunges at Emma, and Deek shoots, but Jules pushes Deek’s arm so that he only shoots the ceiling.

After an extensive struggle, Emma escapes the house with Laika, but when Kane shoots Deek’s gun, Laika runs off. Kane goes to his mother’s car, believing that Emma is taking it, but she takes the delivery vehicle and hits Kane with it. Emma retrieves the stun gun. Meanwhile, Kane discovers that his mother has died in the same way as Laura. When he grabs the wayward Laika and threatens her, Emma returns and shoots Kane in the face with the stun gun. Kane shoots her in the leg. After a further struggle, Emma fatally shoots Kane and calls 911.

In the aftermath, Emma recovers in the hospital. The police inform Shawn of Emma’s condition. When she has healed, she returns to Jules’s house and packs her things. Deek comes over for tea, which he laces with a paralytic drug. He pulls a gun on Emma and tells her not to answer her ringing phone—a call from Shawn. Emma realizes that Deek is the mastermind behind Kane’s attack. Deek wants to write a book about the attack; he is the author of the book-within-a-book, Murder Beach, and he wants this book to jumpstart his return to fame as an author.

Emma shocks Deek in the testicles with the stun gun, but the drug weakens her, and Deek tells her that he is staging her death by suicide. (In Murder Beach, he writes that Emma takes her own life.) He drives her to the end of the island, her weighted backpack on her, and tosses her into the ocean. Emma has a vision of her daughter, Shelby, and manages to free herself, swim to the surface, and walk to the police station. When Deek calls in her supposed death by suicide, the police tell him that Emma is already at the station. After Emma tells the police about Deek’s actions, she begins to drive back to Salt Lake City. Along the way, she calls Shawn back and tells him that she is coming home. He offers to meet her halfway.