The Last Goodbye: Summary and book reviews of The Last Goodbye by Reed Arvin, plus links to an excerpt from The Last Goodbye and a biography of Reed Arvin.
The Last Goodbye
by Reed Arvin
Hardcover: Feb 2004,
352 pages.
Paperback: Jun 2005,
400 pages.
From the hot new suspense writer critics predict will have Grisham fans
"switching their allegiance in midstream" comes a thrilling tale of
love and murder set on the mean streets and in the sleek society haunts of
Atlanta. . . .
Sleeping with a client's gorgeous girlfriend may have been the gutsiest
move in Jack Hammond's formerly booming law career, but it wasn't the
smartest. Booted from his elite law firm, Jack now scrapes by as a
court-appointed attorney, his client list a revolving door of small-time drug
offenders and petty thieves.
When his friend -- a computer whiz and former addict who'd brought his life
back from the brink -- is found dead in his apartment with a syringe stuck in
his arm, Jack knows something is very wrong.
Where the cops see just another overdose, Jack sees a murder. Investigating
the case, he learns that his friend was obsessed with a beautiful singer --
who also happens to be half of the most popular power couple in Atlanta.
Talented and privileged, the spellbinding Michele Sonnieris nevertheless a
deeply troubled woman, plagued by secrets. Against his better judgment -- and
in a disturbing echo of his earlier fall from grace -- Jack is pulled further
and further into her world, where he discovers more suspicious deaths, all
pointing toward a mysterious cover-up.
A volatile tale of love, betrayal, and murder shot through with tenderness
and poignant humanity, The Last Goodbye is a riveting thriller with a
thunderously beating heart, a masterful page-turner that probes the meaning of
love and the burdens of the past.
Library Journal - Jan Jorgenson
Jack is
a highly unoriginal reworking of a dozen other down-but-not-out, reluctantly
heroic lawyers who must fight the good fight. The plot also feels pieced
together, which means the sum of the book's parts does not make a believable
whole.
Publishers Weekly
... this
isn't a legal thriller so much as a knight-in-shining armor tale with the hero
cast in the mold of the great Travis McGee....Arvin should be compared to... the incomparable John D. MacDonald. Those
readers who value intelligence, fine writing and action will find it all in this
outstanding novel.
Kirkus Reviews
Less original than The Will
(2001) but fleeter and more ambitious in a legal-gangbusters way that genre fans
will find as irresistible as a call from the grave for revenge.
Booklist - Wes Lukowsky
Starred Review. Arvin's first legal thriller, The Will (2000), generated
excellent reviews. His second just might kick him to a whole new level,
critically and commercially. He presents love, sex, money, power, and violence
in an irresistibly melancholy noir package in which redemption is the motive but
hell beckons at every turn.
Recent Reader Reviews
Rated of 5
by Word Maven Where's the copy editor? Riveting airplane read, but sloppily written. The plot inconsistencies, danglers, repetitiveness, bad punctuation, and awkward sentences make the reader wonder if Harper-Collins skipped the copy-editing process altogether. There's a lot of popular... Read More
Reed Arvin was brought up on a cattle ranch in
Kansas. One day his parents brought home a
beat up, polka-dot piano they'd bought for $50.
It changed his life - from that moment on he
pursued music, 'first as a passion, and later,
as a career'.
He traveled world wide as a professional
musician before finally settling in Nashville as
a record producer. He says that contrary
to rumor the life of a working musician is a
great one and he was very content. However, he
had often noticed similarities between writing
and music - both had pitch and pulse,
melody and line, so...
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Library Journal - Jan Jorgenson
Booklist - Wes Lukowsky
of 5
by Word Maven
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