Back in ’68 they made killer music … now their music is killing them. It’s been thirty years since Joe Portugal put his electric guitar away. Maybe that’s one reason he’s suffering a serious case of the mid-life doldrums. Then Joe stumbles upon a chance to put the band he was in as a teenager back together. And maybe his life too. All he has to do is find the lead guitarist, who hasn’t been seen since the 70s. But when he starts to look, it’s quickly clear that someone doesn’t want to see a reunion tour … someone who’s very handy with a gun.
From the November 3, 2003 mystery issue of Publishers Weekly:
Lee Child, whose Persuader (Delacorte) was a New York Times bestseller, finds picking the winners a tough task. “There’s a huge pool to choose from, and these things are always easier to judge in retrospect,” he cautions, before recommending [two other books] and Nathan Walpow’s One Last Hit (UglyTown) (“a perfect California mystery”).
I thought it was extraordinary—just fabulous. Quite apart from the plot and characters it had a terrific emotional quotient which all of us boomers should be eating up. Required reading for the Reacher Creatures.
—Lee Child, author of the Jack Reacher series
Joe Portugal is an amateur sleuth with hardboiled aspirations. Although he talks like Raymond Chandler, he doesn’t like guns, or violence, or danger. It makes him a very endearing and likeable protagonist. … The plot kept me guessing to the end, the writing flows, and the dialogue in particular is excellent. In addition, there are some superb supporting characters.
—reviewingtheevidence.com
Longtime Mystery Bookstore customers know that we’re big fans of Nathan Walpow and his amateur detective, Joe Portugal. We’re delighted to see Joe in a new adventure. One Last Hit is more than a traditional mystery—it’s a book about rediscovering dreams and deciding which to let go.
—The Mystery Bookstore, Los Angeles
