The Last Good Guy

Starred review from June 10, 2019
In bestseller Parker’s excellent third outing for San Diego, Calif., PI Roland Ford (after 2018’s Swift Vengeance), 28-year-old Penelope Rideout, whose parents died 10 years earlier in a car crash, hires Ford to locate her missing 14-year-old sister, Daley, who has a “wild streak.” When Ford goes to interview Nick Moreno, Daley’s 20-year-old “guaranteed loser” boyfriend, he ends up talking to some neighbors who saw Daley leaving Nick’s condo with “two men she seemed to know.” Inside the condo, Ford finds Nick shot to death. The ensuing search for Daley involves a megachurch and its charismatic pastor, an unusually secretive private security firm, and a decommissioned nuclear power plant. Parker seamlessly integrates the backstories of Daley and Penelope while interspersing Ford’s ruminations on his own troubled life (Ford is “the last good guy” of the title). The author does a masterly job of ratcheting up the tension, and the often lyrical prose is a pleasure to read. This entry could well earn three-time Edgar Award–winner Parker a fourth Edgar. Author tour. Agent: Robert Gottlieb, Trident Agency.

June 15, 2019
A Southern California shamus pursues a missing teen who may be far from innocent. Perfect Penelope Rideout walks into the office of Roland Ford (Swift Vengeance, 2018, etc.)--who narrates in a laconic, puckish voice reminiscent of Hammett--like the client in a vintage detective movie and hires him to find her missing sister, Daley, a 14-year-old who's taken up with "guaranteed loser" Nick Moreno, 20. When Ford goes to Moreno's apartment, he finds the loser dead. A neighbor reports having seen Daley leave with some men. After informing the police of Moreno's death, Ford visits Daley's school, the Monarch Academy, where students confirm her relationship with Moreno. Was Daley kidnapped by her boyfriend's killers, or was she their accomplice? The trail leads Ford to Alchemy 101, a teen club, and Cathedral by the Sea, a shady church where he endures a beating. The deeper he digs, the more Ford begins to mistrust the mysterious Penelope, and at length he confronts her. She parries his thrusts but doesn't convince him of her credibility. So a determined Ford returns to Cathedral by the Sea for a showdown with telegenic preacher Reggie Atlas, who gives "family values" a new and sinister meaning. Atlas is surely a charlatan, but does that make him a killer? Ford joins his shady flock in an attempt to ferret out the truth and find the missing wild child. In the third case for his franchise hero, the prolific Parker summons the memory of retro hard-boiled crime yarns.

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Starred review from June 1, 2019
In his third case (after Swift Vengeance, 2018), San Diego PI Roland Ford is hired for a job that escalates from searching for a missing teenager to taking down a domestic-terrorism cult. The enigmatic Penelope Rideout walks into Ford's office, professing concern for her sister, and then spins an improbable tale, flirting her way into his heart. Years since anyone had come near it. But there she was. The tale turns out to be a bizarre fabrication, but he is hooked. The otherwise hard-boiled Ford seems at times as conflicted as Captain America, often finding his own beliefs at odds with those of the rest of the world. Ford's investigation starts at an unusual private school and leads him into an ambush by skinhead thugs, who beat him nearly to death. He is rescued by his tenant, Burt, and revived by a gin-infused ice bath and further ministrations by the several engaging residents of his estate, Rancho de los Robles. Once back on his feet, Ford follows leads on the girl's whereabouts that take him to a celebrity evangelist and eventually to the desert headquarters of a band of white supremacists. In this powerful thriller, Parker leaves us aching for the damaged souls left behind by false prophets and hate-mongers, and hoping that there still really are some good guys.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2019, American Library Association.)

July 1, 2019

When the young, beautiful, and perplexing Penelope Rideout hires private investigator Roland Ford to find her missing sister, Daley, Roland suspects Penelope has not told the entire story. As he searches for Daley, Roland is swept up in a web of lies and secrets. When he learns he cannot trust Penelope, he continues his investigation, which leads him to a secretive charter school, a young celebrity evangelist pastor, and a secret neo-Nazi compound in the Southern Calfornia desert. As Roland uncovers his client's true story, their feelings for each other become complicated. VERDICT Three-time Edgar Award winner and New York Times best-selling Parker delivers another exceptional noir with the third installment of the series (The Room of White Fire, Swift Vengeance). Readers of C.J. Box will enjoy the strong character development, fans of James Patterson will delight in the twists and turns, while T.C. Boyle fans will appreciate the atmospheric California setting. [See Prepub Alert, 2/11/19.]--Russell Michalak, Goldey-Beacom Coll. Lib., Wilmington, DE

Copyright 2019 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

July 1, 2019

Asked to hunt for an alluring woman's missing sister, private investigator Roland Ford encounters American Nazis and a way-conservative celebrity evangelist. Third in a new series from the three-time Edgar Award winner.

Copyright 2019 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.