The Last Resort is the third novel by best-selling American author, Marissa Stapley. Located on the Mayan Riviera in Mexico, the Harmony Resort is touted as the last resort for failing marriages. Celebrity therapist Dr Miles Markell and his wife Grace and their team at the luxury resort repair marriages, a dozen couples at a time. It takes just two weeks. Their own marriage is, of course, perfect.

The reader knows, though, from the first pages, that after Hurricane Christine has passed through the area, Miles is missing, with grave fears held for his safety. Trouble in paradise, indeed! But before all that, the couples, with all their problems and quirks and secrets, arrive: alcoholic Shell Williams and her workaholic husband, Colin; social worker Johanna Haines and her District Attorney husband, Ben Reid. The other eight couples, nameless and featureless in the background.

From vague hints drip-fed into the narrative, the reader gradually learns what crippling secrets (and there are quite a few) these three couples are holding, and how their lives have been affected, until things build to an explosive climax, concurrent with a category four hurricane making things wet and wild.

It’s quite clever of Stapley to situate her resort in Mexico where the (accredited?) therapists are able to be unprofessional, unethical and inappropriate without oversight from any professional body; and where clients can be made to sign a (legal? binding?) contract with some surprise conditions. What does become quickly clear is that all the therapists are as much in need of therapy as the clients they are treating.

Nonetheless, the credibility is stretched: would DA Ben really sign a contract with no more than a cursory glance? Would two therapists and one intern dealing with twelve couples actually have time for all those dramatics and dummy spits? Certainly, the Haines/Reid and Williams couples seem to be getting more than their share of attention.

Stapley’s characters are perhaps a little stereotypical: a predator and some enablers; the sexually repressed, the grieving, the traumatised, the weak, the guilty; lots of angst there. Some are immediately detestable; others eventually evoke some sympathy.

Stapley uses multiple formats besides the conventional narrative to convey the story: blog, email, therapy session transcript, book excerpt and flashback. The very neat resolution is undeniably Agatha Christie inspired. Get past the slow start, suspend disbelief and it’s a fairly entertaining read.
This unbiased review is from an uncorrected proof copy provided by Allen & Unwin.