Charlie Resnick's last case, Last Rites is another story about modern-day cops and killers. The underlying theme, however, is about love and Charlie finally finds it with his partner Lynn Kellog. The setting is Nottingham, England that is being torn apart by violent gang warfare, corruption in the police department, spread of guns and drugs. A man sentenced to prison for killing his father is taken by armed guard to attend his mother's funeral and overwhelms the guards and escapes. Charlie is also tracking a killer who is dealing drugs. Charlie loves food and much time is spent describing his sandwiches dripping with mayonaise and olive oil. He also cooks impromtu dishes : fried cooked potato with garlic and onion, added cannellini beans, frozen peas, sliced pork sausage, eggs, Tabasco. His love for Jazz continues as he approaches his time for redundancy(retirement).
I had no idea what was going on for about three quarters of the book. Should I be focusing on the escaped killer, the drug war, the shootings, the detective's love problems or the incest going on between said criminal and his sister? Honestly, I had no idea. So you can imagine how confused and frustrated I was with the book. I'm not saying it isn't good, because for someone with an attention span that, unlike mine, can remain focused for more than a few seconds when confronted with these types of stories it might be an interesting book, but unfortunately, I found it boring and not at all enjoyable.
What do You think about Last Rites (1999)?
Apparently, only two novels with Charlie Resnick as the main character are left after this one. As mentioned in a previous review, Harvey improves these stories with each progressive novel.He mostly sticks with his formula of taking threads that seem unrelated and then weaving them into a broad, interrelated tale. I also like how he brings back characters from previous books that one feels as if he simply forgot about them. I don't want to bring up other aspects of the story out of fear of spoiling parts of it, so if a person has enjoyed, this series, then keep on reading the novels and he or she won't be disappointed.
—Eric
