From Booklist
Randall Blackburn and his adoptive son, Shane Nightingale (The Last Nightingale, 2007), return in another unconventional thriller, this time set at the1915 Pan Pacific International Exposition in San Francisco. James Duncan, a famous mesmerist performing at the fair, requests the services of detective Blackburn to discover the killer in a very unusual homicide—his own. Blackburn and son ferret out the complex hidden motives and subconscious influences that drive criminal obsession and intricate deception while at the same time dealing with their own emotional issues. Duncan’s high-profile performance nearly crashes when he can’t recall the key phrase to bring his subjects out of their hypnotic trance, leaving the audience and the reader on tenterhooks. This is a story of secrets: secret shame, secret pain, and secret ugly desires that drive people to commit atrocious acts. Flacco’s screenwriting skills bring an already suspenseful story to a visceral level as the reader ever-so-slowly discovers the elusive connections among characters and the inexorable pull of fate. Suggest this to readers of Joanne Harris’ Gentlemen and Players (2006) and Wesley Stace’s By George (2007). --Jen Baker
Product Description
1915. A city emerges from the ashes . . . and so does a killer concealed in its shadows.
Nine years after San Francisco’s great earthquake and fires, the city is just beginning to be reborn and is full of possibility. The World’s Fair is opening to herald the completion of the Panama Canal and display exciting wonders and the promise of the new technological age.
Yet the primitive past haunts the city’s renaissance. Leaving a trail of brutality, a murderous fanatic secretly stalks one of the fair’s chief attractions: the brilliant mesmerist James “J. D.” Duncan. Homicide detective Randall Blackburn and his adopted son, Shane Nightingale, must combine their intuitive profiling skills deductive techniques to solve a murder that hasn’t happened yet . . . one that only its terrified intended victim can see coming.
Praise for Anthony Flacco’s The Last Nightingale
“Flacco imagines the chaos [of the 1906 San Francisco earthquake] in precise and vivid detail while contributing his own distinctive narrative touch.”
–The New York Times
“Gripping . . . [Flacco’s] screenwriting talent shines in this story of the earth’s destructive power and humanity’s moral depravity. . . . Dickens meets Hannibal Lecter. Brace yourself.”
–Booklist
“A frightening and haunting picture of a ruined city staggering back to reality.”
–The Washington Times
From the Trade Paperback edition.
Nine years after San Francisco’s great earthquake and fires, the city is just beginning to be reborn and is full of possibility. The World’s Fair is opening to herald the completion of the Panama Canal and display exciting wonders and the promise of the new technological age.
Yet the primitive past haunts the city’s renaissance. Leaving a trail of brutality, a murderous fanatic secretly stalks one of the fair’s chief attractions: the brilliant mesmerist James “J. D.” Duncan. Homicide detective Randall Blackburn and his adopted son, Shane Nightingale, must combine their intuitive profiling skills deductive techniques to solve a murder that hasn’t happened yet . . . one that only its terrified intended victim can see coming.
Praise for Anthony Flacco’s The Last Nightingale
“Flacco imagines the chaos [of the 1906 San Francisco earthquake] in precise and vivid detail while contributing his own distinctive narrative touch.”
–The New York Times
“Gripping . . . [Flacco’s] screenwriting talent shines in this story of the earth’s destructive power and humanity’s moral depravity. . . . Dickens meets Hannibal Lecter. Brace yourself.”
–Booklist
“A frightening and haunting picture of a ruined city staggering back to reality.”
–The Washington Times
From the Trade Paperback edition.
