Last Ferry Home

Starred review from January 15, 2018
San Francisco homicide detective Michael O’Higgins, the hero of this haunting tale of loss from Harrington (Dark Ride), has yet to recover from the trauma of his wife’s death in a boating accident outside the Golden Gate Bridge. A year after the tragedy, the sight of open water still paralyzes him. Therapy hasn’t helped and he’s sent his teen daughter to his sister in Sacramento. On his first day back at work after bereavement leave, O’Higgins realizes that investigating a double murder at a Pacific Heights mansion won’t be routine, because one victim is Indian businessman Rishi Chaundry, whose father is poised to become India’s next prime minister, and the other is Bharti Kumar, the family nanny. The police suspect Rishi’s widow, Asha, who may have been jealous of her husband’s attentions to the attractive young Bharti—and who later encounters a charming art dealer who could be a serial killer. O’Higgins’s affair with a female cop who has severe anger issues complicates the case. San Francisco native Harrington uses his trademark narrative jumps to heighten the suspense in this long-awaited return to his dark hometown turf.

February 15, 2018

Michael O'Higgins is a cop in crisis. Less than a year ago, he witnessed his wife's tragic death and is finding it impossible to cope. Even after months of counseling, he still cannot recount the details of that ill-fated day. Desperate for normalcy, he returns to work as a San Francisco homicide detective and catches a double murder case--the savage slaying of a husband and nanny from a wealthy and well-connected Indian family. Remarkably, O'Higgins had met them only one week before on the ferry. He was immediately attracted to the wife, Asha, and she is now the prime suspect. The case quickly morphs into an international incident involving the Indian government, and O'Higgins begins to fear for Asha's safety and sanity. VERDICT While sometimes bordering on the cliched, this latest from Harrington (The Good Physician) nevertheless delivers quite a punch. The alternating time lines keep readers on their toes and do a stellar job of creating a sense of impending doom. The author also fleshes out several minor characters and story lines with depth and color that add greatly to this noir tale.--Amy Nolan, St. Joseph, MI

Copyright 2018 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

February 1, 2018
Still traumatized by the death of his wife in a sailing accident 18 months ago, San Francisco homicide detective Michael O'Higgins is further tested on his first day back on the job by a gruesome double murder.Rishi Chaundhry, an Indian man, and his family's sexy young nanny, Bharti Kumar, were both stabbed to death in their Nob Hill mansion. Rishi's aloof father, Nirad, a billionaire favored to become India's next prime minister, blames the killings on Rishi's distraught widow, Asha. He claims she acted in a jealous rage after learning her husband was carrying on with Bharti. In an odd coincidence, O'Higgins had just met and been drawn to Asha on a therapeutic ferry ride he took to deal with his fear of open water. (He still blames himself for the death of his wife, whom he was unable to save.) The more intensely he becomes involved with Asha, whose children are snatched and flown off to India by her father-in-law, the more his friends on the force worry about his psychological fitness. An Afghanistan veteran, the detective "regretted that he was not back at war, where things would be simple to understand." But when O'Higgins is attacked by an intruder sent for Bharti's cellphone, the possibility that Nirad had something to do with the killings grows stronger. While Harrington's understatement can be a strength, the emotional payoff is a bit more muted than one might hope for. And does the author really have his protagonist praise Michael Connelly, who wrote a blurb that's used on Harrington's books? But this is still strong, hard-edged stuff by a writer in complete control of the narrative.Respected noir veteran Harrington (The Rat Machine, 2013, etc.) returns with a tough and thoughtful novel about grief and its consequences.

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Starred review from February 15, 2018
It's been five years since Harrington's last novel (The Rat Machine), and that's way too long for readers who have come to appreciate this uncompromising author's ability to probe the many shades of darkness that his characters confront both in their own psyches and in the world around them. San Francisco Police Detective Michael O'Higgins is attempting, unsuccessfully, to recover from the death of his wife in a freak sailing accident. Therapy seems to help, pulling him from the suicidal spiral into which he had fallen and prompting him to return to work, but the double murder of a prominent Indian businessman and the family's nanny only increases his turmoil, driven by his attraction to the dead man's wife, Asha, who is the main suspect in the case. As Harrington parcels out the story, jumping back and forth in time, we watch as Michael risks his career to prove Asha's innocence, finding in his feelings for her a possible way back to life. The finale leaves a few plot strands untied, but Harrington's focus is on the inner lives of all his characters, large and small, and their various attempts to deal with grief and the suffering they find at the core of life. A powerful, well-wrought psychological thriller.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2018, American Library Association.)