The Last Whisper in the Dark

May 27, 2013
Thriller Award–winner Piccirilli’s dedication, which begins, “For everyone with a sin that can’t be laid aside,” sets the somber tone for this superior noir set on Long Island, the sequel to 2012’s The Last Kind Words. Terrier “Terry” Rand, who’s trying to stay honest despite being born into a family of crooks, suffers from nightmares. He’s haunted by the ghosts of dead family members, including his older brother, Collie, executed for murders committed in the first book. When his former best friend, Chub Wright, whose wife, Kimmy, was an old flame of Terry’s, gets involved with the wrong bad guys and ends up in their cross hairs, Terry finds himself drawn into yet another morally complex situation. Hard-edged prose (“I’d stuck an icepick through the spleen of the conversation”) sustains the gritty feeling that pervades this novel of attempted redemption for the crimes of others. Agent: David Hale Smith, DHS Literary.

June 1, 2013
The last remaining son of a family of Long Island thieves and grifters tries to turn his life around. It's not easy. Terrier Rand has recently seen his brother Collie executed for murder and buried his uncle Greyhound in the backyard, where his other uncle, Malamute, was murdered. (Only the family dog, JFK, is named after a person.) Terry's grandfather has Alzheimer's, and his father, Pinscher, is in the early stages. Terry and his teenage sister Airedale are trying to make something of their lives, but shadows from the past draw Terry back into trouble. Kimmy, the love of his life, has married Chub, his former best friend. Although he runs a successful garage, Chub can't keep away from the thrill of helping to plan robberies and provide getaway cars. For Kimmy's sake, Terry keeps an eye on Chub, but when he provides the car for a robbery that goes wrong and three cops are killed, Terry sees that he's in over his head. Surprisingly, that may be the least of his problems. His mother's nephew John shows up with a request for her to visit her family--the same family that turned their backs on her when she married Pinscher. Taking her to a nearby mansion, Terry finds that his grandfather, uncle and cousin John are all involved in the movie business. He also discovers that his talented sister Dale has been making underground movies that could get her arrested. His dying maternal grandfather wants him to kill a man he thinks is stealing from him, involving Terry in a business rife with thievery and drug dealing. Terry will do anything to help Kimmy, but the mob and assorted drug dealers all warn him off in violent ways. This second look at Piccirilli's dog-centric family (The Last Kind Words, 2012) is so well-written that the considerable violence is dovetailed seamlessly into the story of a sympathetic young man who fights demons real and imagined.

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Starred review from May 1, 2013
Few authors can write heroes as haunted, or prose as filled with the poetry of noir, as Piccirilli. Following The Last Kind Words (2012), Terry Rand, reluctant thief in a family of thieves, struggles to resist being pulled into what he calls the underneath, but the baggage of the past weighs heavily. Chub, the best friend who married Terry's lost love, Kimmy, is running for his life after a bad mistake, and Terry swears to Kimmy that he'll keep Chub safea promise he probably can't keep. Meanwhile, his mother's side of the family has surfaced, bringing plenty of problems with them. Piccirilli has produced another novel that ranks among his best yet. This is the opposite of a thriller where the hero races a ticking clock to solve a simple task: Terry battles personal history, bad decisions, family genetics, and a wrenching sense of mortality as he struggles (and often fails) to protect those he loves the most. Readers who love noirish atmosphere will be happily marinated in it. But it's Terry's fascinating family that is one of the biggest draws here. In a genre filled with loners, the sense of inescapable, twisted togetherness gives this an unparalleled depth of feeling.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2013, American Library Association.)