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Last to Fold [Hardcover]

David Duffy
4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (43 customer reviews)

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Book Description

March 29, 2011

One of the most exciting debut anti-heroes since Lee Child’s Jack Reacher

Turbo Vlost learned early that life is like a game of cards…. It’s not always about winning. Sometimes it’s just a matter of making your enemies fold first.

Turbo is a man with a past—his childhood was spent in the Soviet Gulag, while half of his adult life was spent in service to the KGB. His painful memories led to the demolition of his marriage, the separation from his only son, and his effective exile from Russia.

Turbo now lives in New York City, where he runs a one-man business finding things for people. However, his past comes crashing into the present when he finds out that his new client is married to his ex-wife; his surrogate father, the man who saved him from the Gulag and recruited him into the KGB, has been shot; and he finds himself once again on the wrong side of the surrogate father’s natural son, the head of the Russian mob in Brooklyn.

As Turbo tries to navigate his way through a labyrinthine maze of deceit, he discovers all of these people have secrets that they are willing to go to any lengths to protect.

Turbo didn’t survive the camps and the Cold War without becoming one wily operator.  He’s ready to show them all why he’s always the one who’s…LAST TO FOLD.

 

"One of the most original protagonists I’ve ever come across — a cross between Arkady Renko and Philip Marlowe: a Russian-born ex-KGB agent living in New York, a private eye with a strong sense of irony and a Russian sense of fatalism.  David Duffy knows his Russia inside and out, but most of all, he knows how to tell a story with flair and elegance.  This is really, really good."

                                --Joseph Finder, New York Times best-selling author of Vanished and Buried Secrets


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Product Details

  • Hardcover: 368 pages
  • Publisher: Thomas Dunne Books; First Edition edition (March 29, 2011)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 0312621906
  • ISBN-13: 978-0312621902
  • Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 6.1 x 1.3 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 15.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
  • Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (43 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #846,206 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Duffy's promising debut introduces Turbo Vlost, a gulag survivor who later worked as an undercover man for the KGB until the Soviet Union's breakup. Now living in New York City, Vlost works at finding things for people. A wealthy businessman, Rory Mulholland, hires Vlost off the books to locate his 19-year-old adopted daughter, Eva, who appears to have been kidnapped. In his effort to rescue Eva, Vlost gets hold of a laptop that contains vital business records of the local Russian mob. When he doesn't immediately return the computer, Vlost discovers himself back on familiar ground, negotiating the hard and violent realities of his Russian past. The dialogue is crisp and rings true, and the main character is easy to like and root for. The plot, however, needs a clarity check from time to time, and Duffy needs to learn when to stop writing atmosphere and social commentary and simply let his story move forward. (Apr.)
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

Review

Nominated for the 2012 Edgar for Best First Novel by an American Author

"One of the most original protagonists I’ve ever come across — a cross between Arkady Renko and Philip Marlowe: a Russian-born ex-KGB agent living in New York, a private eye with a strong sense of irony and a Russian sense of fatalism.  David Duffy knows his Russia inside and out, but most of all, he knows how to tell a story with flair and elegance.  This is really, really good."
—Joseph Finder, New York Times bestselling author of Vanished and Buried Secrets

"The dialogue is crisp and rings true, and the main character is easy to like and root for."
Publishers Weekly

“A new addition to the line of suspense stars at St. Martin’s, introducing an irresistible character and a very rich milieu—the New York City subculture of Russian émigrés, underworld characters and ruthless new-rich swashbucklers….I’m looking forward to the next one.”
Sullivan County Democrat

“From guns, drugs and espionage we get the full gambit in the fast and furious look within the Russian mob.”
Suspense Magazine


Product Details

  • Hardcover: 368 pages
  • Publisher: Thomas Dunne Books; First Edition edition (March 29, 2011)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 0312621906
  • ISBN-13: 978-0312621902
  • Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 6.1 x 1.3 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 15.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
  • Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (43 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #846,206 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Our book club just read David Duffy's Last to Fold, and we heartily recommend it! Gerri  |  11 reviewers made a similar statement
I just flew through this book for a second time. La Gringa Latina  |  6 reviewers made a similar statement
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
9 of 9 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars Last to Fold August 15, 2011
By Anne1
Format:Hardcover
Things to be enjoyed in this book - the dialogue is elegant and spare, real and believable. Invisible writing - like the very best. Great action. Interesting characters. Short sentences that have the reader gripped. Humour - both the gentle humour in the dialogue and an individual, dry sense of humour which involves some hilariously questionable puns.
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8 of 9 people found the following review helpful
4.0 out of 5 stars Russian mob in NY March 29, 2011
Format:Hardcover
Former KGB operative, Turbo Vlost, landed in New York City running a one-man investigative company, or as he so eloquently states, "No company, just me. I get paid to find things."
He has spent his entire post-KGB career staying away from the two sons of his mentor, the man who rescued him as a teenager from the brutal life of the Soviet Gulag, his surrogate father. The two men he avoided run the Russian mob, one still in Russia and the other in Brighton Beach, NY. Their paths have not crossed in the past twenty years until he discovers that his current client, a man whose daughter appears to have been kidnapped, is also married to Turbo's ex-wife.
As the layers of deceit are peeled back Turbo once again finds himself on the wrong side of his former rival who in turn had also been married to Turbo's ex-wife. When his own son, a young man who Turbo has not seen since early childhood, is threatened to keep him in line Turbo finds himself working with the United States Attorney's office to help bring down his current and once former enemy, while managing to help his current client happy too.
Joining the long line in the popular anti-hero movement Duffy brings us a relentlessly violent look at life, showing the influence wielded in this country by America's former enemies since the cessation of the Cold War and the decline of the Berlin Wall. From guns, drugs and espionage we get the full gambit in the fast and furious look within the Russian mob.
Last to Fold
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5 of 5 people found the following review helpful
3.0 out of 5 stars Second half of the book is flat February 7, 2012
Format:Hardcover
I cannot share the enthusiasm of the other reviewers. I have read a fair share of thrillers and felt the characters, plot, and romantic encounters were cardboard.
The main character,Turbo, is an ex-Cheka or KGB agent who is sensitive because he spent his childhood in the gulak. Yet he acts like a minor league James Bond, saving beautiful women from seedy villains.
If the book were totally worthless I would not have finished it, but I wish somebody would have warned me to avoid it. A much better book with a Soviet backdrop is Child 66 IMHO.
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7 of 8 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars New York thriller April 4, 2011
Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase
Brilliant!! What a yarn! One of the most interesting and complicated stories I've ever read. Turbo is a delightful character, and I really like Victoria. The story takes place in New York City, but seems to have almost as many Russian characters as War And Peace. But Duffy has the skill to use them well so that the reader gets to know them, follow them, and even understand them enough. I thank him for the minimal use of pronouns too, so the reader doesn't have to look back a few lines to see which character he is writing about. Having lived in NYC, it's fun for me that the story takes place in NYC, since I can visualize all the scenes. (Well proof-read: only one typo.) I really look forward to Turbo's next adventure, for a replay with Victoria, and I'm so glad that Sergei won't be there.
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
3.0 out of 5 stars Average, requires ridiculous suspension of disbelief February 24, 2012
Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase
Dufffy would have you believe new york is comprises of thirty people, twenty nine of whom know each other, half of which are Russian. How else to explain the massive course cadences that occur without the protagonist wondering if he lives in a Russian mafia Truman show? And for god's sake, Duffy, "y'all" is plural. And every time you use it to refer to an individual, it makes the character in question more of a stereotype.
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars Can't wait for the next Turbo Vlost mystery! April 18, 2011
Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase
I started reading David Duffy's outstanding debut novel, Last to Fold, on Friday, and I barely put it down before finishing it over the weekend. This is a great, thoroughly enjoyable page turner, and I highly recommend it. A smartly written genre mash-up that's one part old-fashioned gumshoe detective mystery, one part Cold War spy novel, one part modern computer crime thriller, with a good dose of dry wit thrown in, to boot. I'm hooked on Turbo Vlost. I think we're looking at a classic in the making, and I can't wait for the next installment in the series. Bring it on!
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
4.0 out of 5 stars compelling crime caper April 1, 2011
Format:Hardcover
Turbo Vlost grew up rather quickly in the Gulag. He escaped thanks to a surrogate father who brought him into the KGB as a field agent until the Soviet Union collapsed. However his past never left him as his horror memories ended his family life as his wife divorced him and their son remains estranged from him.

Turbo resides in New York City where he earns a modest living locating people and things for clients. His current customer affluent businessman, Rory Mulholland wants Vlost to find his missing adopted teenage daughter Eva. Although he thinks it odd that his client pays him in cash so there is no record in what Rory insists is a kidnapping, Vlost needs the money even if his former wife is married to Mulholland. However, the inquiry turns stranger and potentially deadly when Vlost obtains the business records of the Brooklyn Russian mob run by the biological son of his recently shot Soviet savior.

Vlost makes for a compelling crime caper as his past and present collide when Russia and the Hudson converge. The story line is at its best when the hero faces his adversaries although at times unnecessary explicatory diatribes about social conditions occur. Still Vlost is an intriguing refreshing lead character whose presence means the Russians are not coming as they are already here.

Harriet Klausner
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
4.0 out of 5 stars great to character!
This book starts a great new series. Even his name is cool: Turbo. He's a KGB trained loose cannon on the streets of New York working as a security consultant. Read more
Published 6 months ago by Brian Moore
5.0 out of 5 stars Hard edged new crime fighter.
The Russian mob with more than a few ex KGB members come to America and set off a complex but satisfying mystery with more than a few twists and turns along the way. Read more
Published 7 months ago by muddyboy1
4.0 out of 5 stars Russian-Ex KGB turned good guy privite Eye in New York
For the first 50 pages I was not sure if I was going to like this book. The main charater is an ex KGB analyst and I was not sure how much I would like him. Read more
Published 7 months ago by TrilliumHills
1.0 out of 5 stars Don't Buy It!
I have to agree with the reviewer who thinks the positive reviews are from author's friends; they may also be paid for. Because this book stinks terribly. Read more
Published 8 months ago by H. Potter
2.0 out of 5 stars Weak debut.
Turbo Vlost is an ex-KGB agent living in New York City working as a PI. He is hired by a wealthy banker, Rory Mulholland, to find his daughter who has disappeared and apparently... Read more
Published 9 months ago by Larry Gandle
3.0 out of 5 stars Well Written but Confusing, and Feels a Bit Dated
How do you write a spy thriller after the Cold War has ended (even if it may be heating up again)? David Duffy answers that question by making his cast a set of high-level... Read more
Published 11 months ago by Brian Thompson
5.0 out of 5 stars A Winner of a Read
I look forward each year to the "first novel Edgar Nominee list", looking for a new name to add to my list of authors to read. Read more
Published 13 months ago by Mark Goodwich
5.0 out of 5 stars Ready For More
I just flew through this book for a second time. I was recommending Last To Fold to a friend who wanted a book that could sweep her away and, as I was telling her that the next... Read more
Published 14 months ago by La Gringa Latina
1.0 out of 5 stars authors friends must have reviewed this
This book has a very laborious and totally unlikely plot. It depends on the very inproabable device of a reporter in Russia explaining in his blogging what is happening in the... Read more
Published 16 months ago by Michael Hughes
5.0 out of 5 stars fabulous!
one of the best thrillers i've read in years - if you like reggie nadelson's novels about russian-american detective artie cohen, you'lll love this and love Turbo, too.Londongrad
Published 17 months ago by Jane Adams
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