Last Shot - Mike Faricy

   2013; 307 pages.  Book 6 (out of 31) in the “Dev Haskell – Private Investigator” series.  New Author? : No.  Genres: Beach Read; Murder-Mystery; Private Investigator Mystery.  Overall Rating: 8*/10.

 

    It was the best of decisions; it was the worst of decisions.

 

    Private Investigator Dev Haskell isn’t overworked right now – in fact he’s working on zero cases – yet when Desi, a gorgeous ex-con comes to him with an offer of work (and with money to pay him!), he turns her down.  Bad decision, Dev.

 

    Desi served time for a bank robbery, but she claims she took the fall for a powerful big-shot named Gaston Driscoll.  Now she’s served her time, but thinks she’s being followed, and the Gaston’s out to silence her.  Permanently.  She wants Dev to investigate Driscoll, but he's turned her down reasoning that if push came to shove between him and Gaston, he’d be on the receiving end of all the pushing and shoving.  Good decision, Dev.

 

    Desi was of course disappointed but understood Dev’s reluctance.  Her parting words to Dev as she left his office were, “There’s really no one else I can ask.  You were sort of my last shot.”

 

    And when she's found dead a short time later, Dev finds himself involved up to his ears in the case, whether he likes it or not.

 

What’s To Like...

    Last Shot is the sixth book in Mike Faricy’s Dev Haskell series, which I’m reading in order although you don’t really have to.  As usual, Dev quickly finds himself in over his head, with the St. Paul, Minnesota police department wavering between treating him as a suspect or treating him as a nuisance.

 

    As usual, the storyline is filled with lots of sexy girls, some of which may be the death of Dev.  A couple are dancers at a local strip club where Desi was a bartender, one owns a carwash, another works in the Police Records Department (and is a handy resource for Dev), still another used to be employed by an architectural firm financed by Gaston Driscoll.  Dev dutifully makes his PI rounds, turning up all sorts of questions but not very many answers.

 

    The tale is told from the first-person POV, Dev’s, which is the norm for this series.  I hesitate to call this a whodunit, as the perpetrator is pretty evident from the start.  Instead, the challenge for Dev is to figure out a way to bring down the evildoer, which is no small feat, as Mr. Bad Guy's reputation as a benevolent philanthropist is spotless.  Most of the story takes place in St. Paul, but we do make one quick trip overseas, which is a rarity for this series.

 

    The action is fast-paced, the dialogue is witty (a Mike Faricy forte), and there are no slow spots.  I liked the name of the architecture company: “Touchier and Touchier”, and chuckled at the mention of a Yellow Pages phone book.  I laughed when Dev got engulfed by a huge pile of toxic chemical fertilizer; my career was with a chemical fertilizer company.  My favorite character is once again here: Louie Laufen, who serves as both attorney and office roommate for Dev, and although he doesn’t figure much into the main plotline, he can always be counted on for snarky-yet-sage advice.

 

    The ending is over-the-top, and includes a huge WTF: a chance meeting of two important characters, that strained my suspension-of-disbelief.  However, since it tidily ties up the main plotline, I’ll let it slide.  Last Shot is a standalone novel as well as part of a 31-book series.  You can also get it as part of a 7-book bundle (books 1-7) that Mike Faricy at times offers at a significantly discounted price.

 

Ratings…
    Amazon:  4.2/5 based on 420 ratings and 338 reviews.

    Goodreads: 3.88/5 based on 745 ratings and 61 reviews

 

Excerpts...

    “What are you supposed to be meeting about?”

    “I just said I was considering making a career change and a friend mentioned him as a top man in his field, someone I should talk to.”

    “And that got you an appointment with him the next day?”

    “He said he could only give me ten minutes.”

    “Ten minutes?  You’ll have to wear a raincoat with nothing on underneath.”

    “That’s what I was planning to wear for the second meeting.”  (loc. 19100)

 

    I nodded at “Your next, asshole” message spray painted in large red letters across the wall.

    Oscar sighed again, then said, “You notice they spelled that wrong?  Should be you’re, you know, with an apostrophe and then the letters r and e.  Might just be a clue.”

    “I don’t think these were the kind of people who worry a lot about grammar and punctuation.”  (loc. 20430)

 

Kindle Details…

    Last Shot is presently priced at $3.99 at Amazon, as are most of the other books in this series.  A couple are priced at $3.94 and $3.96 right now, and Book One, Russian Roulette, has an introductory price of just $0.99.  You can also get good deals on 3-, 4-, and 7-book bundles of various books in the series.  Mike Faricy has several other series (Hotshot, Corridor Man, and Jack Dillon Dublin Tales) to supplement Dev Haskell’s misadventures.

 

Sometimes my best ideas are beverage fueled.  (loc. 20506)

    The usual quibbles apply to Last Shot, the main one, as always, being the horrendous amount of typos.  Things like: accept/except, Driscoll’s/Driscolls, clip board/clipboard, bitties/biddies, ex’s/exes, wheel chair/wheelchair, and one of my personal peeves, lightening/lightning.  There were many more.

 

    There’s only a moderate amount a cussing in the text, 17 instances in the first 20% of the story.  That’s about par for a Dev Haskell tale, at least starting with Book 4.  The black-hats and white-hats are easy to tell apart, but that allows Mike Faricy to focus on penning an action-packed story instead of slowing things down to attend to things like character-development.

 

    Overall, Last Shot gave me exactly what I was looking for – a light, easy, thoroughly entertaining read.  I've added the genre “Beach Read” to the opening details, as this series would be perfect for such an occasion, or when you're stuck in an airport.

 

    8 Stars.  Some reviewers have griped about a perceived “excessive amount” of sex and booze that Dev partakes of in these books.  I respectfully disagree, but hey, let’s track a couple metrics for Dev starting with Last Shot.  Drinking Establishments visited: 5 (Nasty’s, The Spot, St. Paul’s Grill, Fabulous Ferns, Glass Slipper).  Rolls-in-the-Hay: 2 (we won’t name names).  Cars Wrecked: 1 (with a nod to Stephanie Plum).  Hopefully I'll remember to track these when I read the next book, Ting-a-Ling.