- Mass Market Paperback: 400 pages
- Publisher: HarperCollins; Reprint edition (20 Aug 2005)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0060555521
- ISBN-13: 978-0060555528
- Product Dimensions: 18.5 x 11.3 x 2.8 cm
- Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 1,640,565 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
The Last Goodbye
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Review
"A mesmerizing thriller ...readers who value intelligence, fine writing and action will find it all in this outstanding novel."--Publishers Weekly
Product Description
Relegated to a job in a seedy downtown office after an unfortunate affair, down-on-his-luck attorney Jack Hammond works as a court-appointed attorney until a close friend is found murdered, a case that draws him into the world of a beautiful opera singer. Reprint.
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First Sentence
SO I'LL TELL YOU. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Excerpt | Back Cover
SO I'LL TELL YOU. Read the first page
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
Isn't the pleasure a reader derives from a novel supposed to increase as the plot unfolds? THE LAST GOODBYE is unusual in that my interest steadily waned as I turned the pages. By the end, I was pretty much indifferent to the hero and the outcome.
Jack Hammond is a disgraced Atlanta lawyer reduced to acting as public defender for the urban scum hauled into court on drug and petty theft charges. (Hammond, who's a closet romantic with a weakness for damsels in distress, was summarily dropped from the roster of a high-powered law firm two years before after sleeping with a client's girlfriend.) When Jack learns that Doug, a down-and-almost-out friend with a substance abuse problem, apparently overdosed on an injectable drug, he realizes that something is wrong with the picture. Doug had a paranoid fear of needles. Was it foul play? Hammond subsequently discovers that his old pal was a computer hacker extraordinaire, and that he had an obsession with the gorgeous Michele Sonnier, a troubled young woman from the Atlanta ghetto turned brilliant and wildly successful opera singer married to Charles Ralston, the philanthropic and much revered head of Horizn Pharmaceuticals. Once Horizn debuts in the plot, and considering activist hand-wringing over the greed of the evil drug companies, the reader suspects where the storyline is going - and so it does.
It's not that THE LAST GOODBYE is awful. Why, even as recently as yesterday, it provided welcome distraction during the boring bits of a professional seminar I had to attend. But, for me, the characters never became real or garnered much sympathy. Hammond is supposed to be a lawyer, but he acts throughout like a private-eye wannabe; he never becomes sufficiently convincing as either. Minor characters that should have added zest to the story - Jack's Dumb Blonde secretary Blu and the antisocial computer outlaw Nightmare - don't really. Hammond's own preoccupation with the vulnerable Michele is torpid, and the affair slows the action down. Indeed, the final reckoning for the Bad Guys has all the knuckle-biting tension of a computer-enabled stock purchase. Worst of all for my overall opinion of the book, there are no twists clever and/or unsuspected enough to make me pause in admiration.
THE LAST GOODBYE is one of a multitude of similarly average potboilers that'll crowd the shelves of the brick-and-mortar booksellers, and which will ultimately end up on the discount tables of the clearance stores found in the outlet malls. Wait for its appearance at the latter and you'll only need to spend a couple bucks.
Format:Mass Market Paperback
It is 1950 and the House Un-American Activities Committee accuses ten-year-old Nick's father, Walter Kotlar, an undersecretary at the Department of State, of being a Communist spy. Nick finds out by seeing him being interrogated by congressmen on the newsreel while at the movies. He refuses to believe it, but his father leaves little doubt when he flees the country in the shadow of the suspicious death of a young woman who testified against him.
Jump ahead to the late '60s, and after serving time with the U.S. Army in Vietnam, Nick is in Europe with his stepfather, Larry, who is in Europe to represent the U.S. at the Paris peace talks to end the war in Vietnam. Nick has put his real father, who has since turned up in the Soviet Union where he admitted to being a spy and had received the Order of Lenin, behind him.
While in Paris Nick meets Molly, an American hippie type, who tell him his father is now living in Czechoslovakia and wants to see him. In Prague Nick's father tells him that he had been betrayed and framed for murder. He also tells him he wants to come home and that he'll give up the names of spies still operating in exchange for life in America.
Nick and Molly go to Washington to search out the spies fingered by Nick's father, including one highly placed agent named Silver, who has been selling out his country for decades and who Nick believes is responsible for many deaths. And now this spy named Silver may even be after Nick.
Mr. Kanon has written a super mystery-thriller that tells the sordid story of McCarthyism as you burn the midnight oil, eagerly reading through the pages to see what comes next in this tale of intrigue that has an ending I guarantee you won't see coming.
Jump ahead to the late '60s, and after serving time with the U.S. Army in Vietnam, Nick is in Europe with his stepfather, Larry, who is in Europe to represent the U.S. at the Paris peace talks to end the war in Vietnam. Nick has put his real father, who has since turned up in the Soviet Union where he admitted to being a spy and had received the Order of Lenin, behind him.
While in Paris Nick meets Molly, an American hippie type, who tell him his father is now living in Czechoslovakia and wants to see him. In Prague Nick's father tells him that he had been betrayed and framed for murder. He also tells him he wants to come home and that he'll give up the names of spies still operating in exchange for life in America.
Nick and Molly go to Washington to search out the spies fingered by Nick's father, including one highly placed agent named Silver, who has been selling out his country for decades and who Nick believes is responsible for many deaths. And now this spy named Silver may even be after Nick.
Mr. Kanon has written a super mystery-thriller that tells the sordid story of McCarthyism as you burn the midnight oil, eagerly reading through the pages to see what comes next in this tale of intrigue that has an ending I guarantee you won't see coming.
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
45 reviews
7 of 7 people found the following review helpful
A very good read!
11 Dec 2005
Format:Hardcover
I loved this book; just read what everybody else said for a more complete description. I'd like to point three things out, though:
(1) The opening chapter is delightful, for its combination of Mickey-Spillane-Plot with Wodehouse-Genteel-Language. The main character is down on his luck, but spins a beautifully sardonic line of high-flown thoughts about it all.
(2) The author has a fine touch when constructing plot twists. That is, he didn't give the game away with obvious choices, or go for cheap shock value with really unlikely angles. Instead, you think you're figuring things out, but then find out you were only half-right, and the other facts are still lurking somewhere. That is, someone has been murdered--but it wasn't exactly how you thought, though you're on the right track; there's more than one obvious murder method, and more than one reasonable suspect.
It kept me not just guessing but *thinking*--instead of distracting you with plot twists or red herrings, the author gives you a damn good puzzle to put together, and more than one of each piece will fit. I enjoyed trying to outguess the main character by putting things together faster than he did.
(3) The book has a bitter streak, and the ending, while not altogether unhappy, still punches you in the gut. I can't say more without giving it away. It's emotionally powerful but never gets sappy or melodramatic. Good stuff.
Anyway, I loved it and I'd love to see more of the author's work, with this set of characters or others. Five stars.
(1) The opening chapter is delightful, for its combination of Mickey-Spillane-Plot with Wodehouse-Genteel-Language. The main character is down on his luck, but spins a beautifully sardonic line of high-flown thoughts about it all.
(2) The author has a fine touch when constructing plot twists. That is, he didn't give the game away with obvious choices, or go for cheap shock value with really unlikely angles. Instead, you think you're figuring things out, but then find out you were only half-right, and the other facts are still lurking somewhere. That is, someone has been murdered--but it wasn't exactly how you thought, though you're on the right track; there's more than one obvious murder method, and more than one reasonable suspect.
It kept me not just guessing but *thinking*--instead of distracting you with plot twists or red herrings, the author gives you a damn good puzzle to put together, and more than one of each piece will fit. I enjoyed trying to outguess the main character by putting things together faster than he did.
(3) The book has a bitter streak, and the ending, while not altogether unhappy, still punches you in the gut. I can't say more without giving it away. It's emotionally powerful but never gets sappy or melodramatic. Good stuff.
Anyway, I loved it and I'd love to see more of the author's work, with this set of characters or others. Five stars.
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful
The Human Condition
6 May 2006
Format:Hardcover
The authors insights, deprecating, honest and realistic, are delivered casually, almost as if from a swing on the front porch. It is this delivery that distinguishes his prose fromt the usual run-of-the-mill writer. His specialty is desperation and hope - two emotions that seem inextricably bound. This is yet another combination police procedural/mystery/drama with a dose of romance - just my cup of tea.
The hero commits a lawyer's fatal error by sleeping with a client who must then face the consequences of her actions. Years later he is a defender of the down and out whose hopeless squalid lives in the Atlanta inner city are wonderfully and bitterly portrayed. An old friend is found dead, a needle in his arm. Since he was once a drug addict the conclusion is suicide - something our hero refuses to accept. So begins the story.
Through a brilliant set of circumstances we are introduced into the world of opera and one diva in particular. Of course, the two fall for each other in a searing mixture of race (she is black), adultry (she is married) and secrets (she has lots). Along the way we meet one of his clients, Nighhawk, a bitter computer hacker who helps Hammond in discovering the truth of what really happened to his friend. The beauty of the book is the way it ties everything together even if the ending is a tad rushed. Reed Arvin is a splendid writer that I would encourage everyone to read.
The hero commits a lawyer's fatal error by sleeping with a client who must then face the consequences of her actions. Years later he is a defender of the down and out whose hopeless squalid lives in the Atlanta inner city are wonderfully and bitterly portrayed. An old friend is found dead, a needle in his arm. Since he was once a drug addict the conclusion is suicide - something our hero refuses to accept. So begins the story.
Through a brilliant set of circumstances we are introduced into the world of opera and one diva in particular. Of course, the two fall for each other in a searing mixture of race (she is black), adultry (she is married) and secrets (she has lots). Along the way we meet one of his clients, Nighhawk, a bitter computer hacker who helps Hammond in discovering the truth of what really happened to his friend. The beauty of the book is the way it ties everything together even if the ending is a tad rushed. Reed Arvin is a splendid writer that I would encourage everyone to read.
10 of 12 people found the following review helpful
Supposedly a thriller... disappointing...
24 Nov 2004
Format:Hardcover
Attorney Jack Hammond is a good defender, with a lot of heart, but his list of clients is low, and his bankbook is even lower, since he left a prestigious law firm. The death of long-time, college friend Doug Townsend is viewed by Jack as a murder paralleled to the police report of a 'suicide'. Doug's body is found with a needle in one arm, and the autopsy reports that he died from an O/D of fenatyl. Jack knows different as his friend had been 'sober' for many years, and Doug never followed the fenatyl path. Hammond's investigation leads him to 'hacker' Nightmare (a favorable character to the story), to opera diva Michele Sonnier - her splendor on stage, and her murky past neither of which stops Jack from falling in love with her. Michele is also married to pharmaceutical mogul Charles Ralston, founder of Horizn Pharmaceuticals, conspirator with a trial drug (tested on humans which results in death) for hepatitis C. Yes, The Last Goodbye has a good premise and a few good characters, but Arvin's development of both of the latter is very weak. Narrated by protagonist Jack Hammond, the author delivers very weak dialog, unnecessary flowered prose to cover pages and move the story from A to Z, slooooowly, diverting from the original path of Doug's death, creating a thought process to the reader of 'where is this story going and when will it end?!' A farcical, way-out-there, disappointing ending, and overall too much rhetoric. Recommend instead: DYING GOOD by Allan George Cole, and SHADOWS IN THE DARKNESS by Elaine Cunningham.
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