The Last Best Hope [Mass Market Paperback]

Ed McBain (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 1, 1999

Matthew Hope mystery.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Matthew Hope is at the end of his spiritual rope. He's divorced from his wife, recovering from a coma and tired of living in Calusa, Florida. When Jill Lawton hires him to find her husband, who's been seen "up north" with another woman, Hope thinks it's just another failed marriage ... until a body washes up on the beach with no face and Jack Lawton's driver's license in his pocket.

Hope enlists the help of Steve Carella, from the 87th precinct, and together they find that the Lawtons weren't the wholesome, tennis club members that they appeared to be. Jack Lawton is planning to steal a prized Greek artifact from the Calusa museum. Jill has a plan of her own, and both of them are sleeping with Melanie Schwartz, who is also sleeping with Peter Donofrio and Ernest Corrington-both ex cons.

The Last Best Hope is a wild ride. It starts out as a sleepy, love-gone-bad story and twists itself into a tightly wound tale of murder, deception and kinky sex. Almost every character is unpredictable and almost every character is a suspect. Ed McBain's two series characters-Hope and Carella-make a powerful team and the friendship that develops through the book lends the story an important sympathetic element. -- Mara Friedman --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Publishers Weekly

McBain, an MWA Grandmaster, seamlessly combines the casts and locales of his Matthew Hope and 87th Precinct series into a coherent and entertaining whole. It begins when Jill Lawton approaches Hope, an attorney in Calusa, Fla., for help in finding her missing husband, Jack, whom she intends to divorce. That night, a body carrying Jack's identification turns up shot in the face and dead. It's not Jack Lawton's body, however, but that of Ernest Corrington, a burglar and would-be actor who was the third corner in a love triangle with Jack and a woman who goes by two names, Melanie and Holly. Jack and she have also comprised an erotic triangle with Jill. What binds these people together (besides the sexual geometry) is a plan to steal the Hemlock Cup from a local museum. The cup, the stuff of legends, is reputedly the very cup from which Socrates drank his poison. Jack, Jill, Holly/Melanie and Corrington hatch intricate plots to steal the cup?and to eliminate each other from collecting any part of the payment being offered by a Greek collector. Trying to trace Jack, Hope gets in touch with Detective Steve Carella of the 87th Precinct "up north." Their collaboration is complicated by dead bodies and yet another boyfriend of Holly/Melanie's. Sound tangled? It is, but with McBain's skilled handling, it's crystal clear and an absolute delight.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Mass Market Paperback: 291 pages
• Publisher: A Time Warner Company; 1st edition (January 1, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0446606731
• ISBN-13: 978-0446606738
• Product Dimensions: 4.1 x 0.9 x 6.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (21 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,261,865 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Ed McBain was one of the many pen names of the successful and prolific crime fiction author Evan Hunter (1926 - 2005). Born Salvatore Lambino in New York, McBain served aboard a destroyer in the US Navy during World War II and then earned a degree from Hunter College in English and Psychology. After a short stint teaching in a high school, McBain went to work for a literary agency in New York, working with authors such as Arthur C. Clarke and P.G. Wodehouse all the while working on his own writing on nights and weekends. He had his first breakthrough in 1954 with the novel The Blackboard Jungle, which was published under his newly legal name Evan Hunter and based on his time teaching in the Bronx.

Perhaps his most popular work, the 87th Precinct series (released mainly under the name Ed McBain) is one of the longest running crime series ever published, debuting in 1956 with Cop Hater and featuring over fifty novels. The series is set in a fictional locale called Isola and features a wide cast of detectives including the prevalent Detective Steve Carella.

McBain was also known as a screenwriter. Most famously he adapted a short story from Daphne Du Maurier into the screenplay for Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds (1963). In addition to writing for the silver screen, he wrote for many television series, including Columbo and the NBC series 87th Precinct (1961-1962), based on his popular novels.

McBain was awarded the Grand Master Award for lifetime achievement in 1986 by the Mystery Writers of America and was the first American to receive the Cartier Diamond Dagger award from the Crime Writers Association of Great Britain. He passed away in 2005 in his home in Connecticut after a battle with larynx cancer.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Matthew Hope meets Steve Carella at last., July 7, 2002

By 

Steven R. Harbin (Southeastern USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Last Best Hope (Mass Market Paperback)

Ed McBain tried to tie his two best selling series together with this novel set both in Matthew Hope's Calusa Beach and in the world of the 87th Precinct. While I'm not sure if he completely succeeded I do think this noirish story of a swinging married couple, their young girlfriend (for lack of a better term), their involvement with a murderous ex con, a scheme to steal a priceless art object, and an unsolved murder or two make this still a vintage exciting McBain novel. The friendship that detective Steve Carella and lawyer (kind of PI) Matthew Hope strike up long distance over the phone seems entirely believable and adds some sympathetic empathy for two of the longest suffering "good guy" crime fighters in modern day mystery fiction. I was glad to see these two each find a sympathetic ear.

The story itself is a little raunchier in terms of sex than previous McBain's, but I don't think it detracts from the story. Indeed it seems kind of essential in explaining the actions and motivations of some of the characters. I could definitely see the book being cast as a noir type of film with one wondering to the end what the outcome will be.

One last note, it isn't necessary to have read any of the other Matthew Hope or 87th Precinct novels before having read this one. It stands on its own well enough, but I do think that it might be helpful to have at least a little bit of a previous acquaintance with Hope and Carella. If nothing else it helps to show the reasons these two would feel a connection with each other. However, once again it isn't necessary for one to enjoy the novel.

Without giving away the ending, the title implies that this might be the last Matthew Hope novel. I certainly hope not, I for one would love to see a follow up where Hope visits Carella and the 87th Precinct in the big city. I'll certainly keep my hopes up. No pun intended.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars I hope it's NOT the LAST, January 6, 2000

By 

Glenore Weal "fivetonine" (Philadelphia, PA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Last Best Hope (Matthew Hope Mysteries) (Hardcover)

I am a big fan of the murder mysteries series genre: Sue Grafton's Kinsey Milhone, J. McDonald's Travis McGee, Robert B. Parker's Spenser... As teens, my brother and I devoured as many of McBain's "87th Pct" books as we could get our hands on. I hadn't read anything by this author in awhile when I stumbled on "The Last Best Hope" last year. I couldn't put it down -- especially after one of the 87th Pct detectives showed up! I'm only sorry that I didn't know about Matthew Hope before -- I've got a whole lot of reading to catch up on!

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Hoping for More Hope, April 9, 2002

By 

MystMan (Kansas City) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Last Best Hope (Mass Market Paperback)

This most recent Matthew Hope novel is the best in the series. Ed McBain, mystery master, has developed a story involving personal agendas, a dead body washing ashore, and a complicated theft. It also features McBain's other protagonist, Steve Carella, in a crucial role. I've always enjoyed this series. McBain does a solid job with his Florida setting. His Hope series is great! I'm hoping for more!