Last Seen

I approached *Last Seen* expecting another run-of-the-mill missing person thriller, but Ellison’s razor-edged prose and relentless pacing turned this into something far more unsettling. Maarleveld and Brick’s narration is the secret weapon here—Maarleveld’s portrayal of the grieving mother, Callie, crackles with raw, exhausted vulnerability, while Brick’s measured, almost clinical delivery as Detective Mason Evans grounds the story in a chilling realism. The audiobook’s structure, which flips between past and present with deliberate disorientation, mirrors the characters’ crumbling grip on reality, and it works brilliantly. That said, the middle act drags slightly as several red herrings pile up, and the resolution, while satisfying, doesn’t quite live up to the explosive tension Ellison builds in the opening act. Still, the production’s high production value—crisp audio clarity and immersive sound design—makes these minor quibbles easy to overlook. If you crave thrillers where the real mystery isn’t just *who* did it, but *why* no one’s telling the truth, this is your audiobook.