Last Rites
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3.8 • 6 Ratings
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- $7.99
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- $7.99
Publisher Description
A Northern England cop tries to track down an escaped convict: “One of the finest police procedural series around” (Publishers Weekly).
It has been thirteen years since Michael Preston killed his father, and now his mother is dead too. Halfway through his twenty-four year sentence, Michael is a docile prisoner whom the warden doesn’t mind letting out for an afternoon to pay his respects. Michael goes to the funeral under armed guard, and when the time comes to return to jail, he gives them the slip. Police inspector Charlie Resnick’s city is under siege by drugs, gang warfare, and unhinged murderers. As blood flows in the streets of Nottingham, the rumpled detective attempts to hold his department together while his personal life comes unhinged. An escaped killer and an ever-rising crime wave are trouble enough, but Resnick has problems at home that may prove impossible to solve.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Harvey's series about Charlie Resnick, the jazz-loving, melancholy cop in provincial Nottingham, England, has long been one of the finest police procedural series around (Rough Treatment, Cold Light, Easy Meat, others). "Has been," because with this exceptionally good entry, poet Harvey says he is leaving Nottingham and Resnick behind. At least he has quit on a high note. A building turf war between drug lords, and an escape by a prisoner who had murdered his own father, are at the heart of the new yarn, skillfully interwoven in a way that only Harvey at his best can contrive. Michael Preston had gone willingly to jail for his father's murder, and when he escapes on an escorted visit to his mother's funeral, his sister Lorraine, always close to him, is fiercely divided. Only she has a sense of what may have driven him--but now he is hopelessly lost to a criminal life, and Lorraine has her own husband and children to care for. Harvey's feel for the fearful compulsions of love is as unerring as his ear for the hard-bitten Midlanders whose lives are Resnick's beat. A decent, thoughtful man in a tough job, whose tender instincts are constantly at war with his duty, Resnick is a splendidly conceived character who will be much missed.
