Last Dance

An LA police detective navigates Cold War politics while searching for a ballerina's killer in this crime thriller follow-up to My Detective.

"Better than pulp fiction, close to noir, maybe with a touch of Chandleresque thrown in for good measure. . . . The story is alive; it breathes; every paragraph brings the reader a sense of being there, of being Carver. Fleishman's writing in the first person ensures that the reader is always in Carver's mind." —The New York Journal of Books

A famous Russian ballerina lies dead in a downtown loft. No marks, no bruises. The suspects are many: spies, hit men, a gunrunner, and one of Hollywood's most powerful and mysterious film producers. Detective Sam Carver becomes entangled in a perilous reignited Cold War between Moscow and Washington. He chases leads from Europe to Africa.

But Carver faces other demons, too. He is haunted by Dylan Cross, a killer who got away a year earlier. She knows his secrets, whispers to him in his dreams. His obsession with Dylan threatens his new case and his relationship with Lily Hernandez, a uniform cop who wants to work as his partner.

Last Dance explores dangers within and without, and how we reconcile the damage, love, and things lost, in a Los Angeles that is as tempting and alluring as it is cruel and sinister.

"The narrative and style applied by the author make the reader feel like they could be back in the 1960s. . . . Fleishman has created something special with his latest release . . . almost as if Raymond Chandler and John Le Carre had a baby. The writing is so descriptive and snappy it seems to just jump off the page at you as the story continues to twist and suspense keeps mounting." —Criminal Element

"A hard-boiled, world-weary hero in the classic tradition of Philip Marlowe and Lew Archer, Carver will also appeal to fans of Michael Connelly's Harry Bosch." —Publishers Weekly