brianlokker's review against another edition
5.0
John D. MacDonald deserves all the accolades he gets. He is a master of character, setting, and plot, and he can tell a heck of a story in a way that keeps you turning the pages.
This is a standalone novel about multiple murders at sea in an explosion on a chartered boat between South Florida and The Bahamas. It evokes MacDonald’s celebrated Travis McGee series, but it’s more expansive and ambitious than the McGee books, at least as I remember them (having read them, in most cases, quite a few years ago).
The book starts out somewhat slowly as MacDonald builds out the large cast of characters involved in the story. I found myself wondering how, or if, they would all fit together. But as the connections fall into place, the suspense builds. The planning behind the explosion and subsequent cover-up is as ingenious as it is cold-blooded, and detection seems unlikely. Small details can have a way of tripping up even the cleverest of criminals. But will that prove true in this case, or will the mastermind behind the murders be “the last one left”?
This is a standalone novel about multiple murders at sea in an explosion on a chartered boat between South Florida and The Bahamas. It evokes MacDonald’s celebrated Travis McGee series, but it’s more expansive and ambitious than the McGee books, at least as I remember them (having read them, in most cases, quite a few years ago).
The book starts out somewhat slowly as MacDonald builds out the large cast of characters involved in the story. I found myself wondering how, or if, they would all fit together. But as the connections fall into place, the suspense builds. The planning behind the explosion and subsequent cover-up is as ingenious as it is cold-blooded, and detection seems unlikely. Small details can have a way of tripping up even the cleverest of criminals. But will that prove true in this case, or will the mastermind behind the murders be “the last one left”?
henryarmitage's review against another edition
4.0
One of his better ones, which is really saying something for this author.
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