The Last Goodbye [Hardcover]

Malcolm Bell (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 1, 1998

August 9, 1945. Nagasaki, Japan. Yotaro Kawai and his family walk in the dusk of summer. Suddenly, a flash...bright light...a screaming silence...and finally, nothingness. The atomic bomb has dropped. Yotaro's family is dead. Yotaro himself is left alone in the rubble, grossly disfigured for the rest of his years.

Flash forward to today: Driven by white-hot hatred of a United States that has forgotten their fifty-year-old sins, Yotaro Kawai has become a major figure on today's international crime scene, with one last wish: to avenge the Nagasaki tragedy for his family, his countrymen, and himself.

Enter Marcus Malone, a middle-aged ex-CIA agent, with nothing to call his own but a failed business venture and marriage. Called out of retirement to stop Kawai, Malone has to lay it all on the line for one last mission. He must give his name, the woman he loves, and his very identity to track down a madman in a criminal world where no moment is safe and no memory will go unpunished.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

This smartly plotted and smoothly written debut thriller by the pseudonymous Malcolm Bell (described only as "a former government employee" on the hardcover jacket) is a welcome throwback to the innocent days of Elleston Trevor and early Len Deighton. There's some healthy sex, but nothing kinky; a modicum of violence, but not much display of seriously nasty body parts. And as for the central threat--that San Diego will be destroyed by a nuclear weapon triggered by a deadly new substance called red mercury--well, only the CIA director really worries much about that.

Most of the pleasure comes from watching Marcus Malone, a former CIA agent running a failing security agency, being convinced by the director and his earnest banker ally to let himself be exposed as a flashy criminal arms dealer and then to disappear into Eastern Europe--where the terrorist who wants the red mercury will hopefully contact him. And when Malone's new ladyfriend, a dauntless dental assistant, decides to join him in Prague, the fun and excitement increase to a level just begging to be filmed. --Dick Adler

From Publishers Weekly

This smartly plotted and smoothly written debut thriller by the pseudonymous Bell (of whom all we know is that he's "a former government employee") is a welcome throwback to the innocent days of Elleston Trevor and early Deighton. Ito Kawai, a Japanese terrorist plotting revenge for Nagaski from a sumptuous lakeside village in Slovenia, is building a bomb that he plans to detonate in San Diego and lacks only the deadly new substance, "red mercury," to activate it. Convinced by the director of the CIA that he's the man to take Ito down, Marcus Malone, former CIA agent and head of a failing security agency, lets himself be falsely exposed as a flashy criminal arms dealer. He then disappears into Eastern Europe with the hope that Ito will contact him for red mercury. When Malone's new ladyfriend, a dauntless dental assistant, decides to join him in Prague, the excitement increases to a level just begging to be filmed. Bell keeps his thriller clean and fun with a dose of healthy sex?but nothing kinky?and a modicum of tasteful violence.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 352 pages
• Publisher: St. Martin's Press; 1st edition (December 1, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0312193106
• ISBN-13: 978-0312193102
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6.4 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #5,488,054 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A fast-paced, fun read for spy/thriller fans1, January 13, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: The Last Goodbye (Hardcover)

I enjoyed this book. Well plotted, a great story line and interesting charachters made for a very fun read that kept me up late to see what would happen next. Gives the word "gardening" a whole new meaning! (I can't divulge what--read it and see for yourself!)

4.0 out of 5 stars Breathless pace compensates for credibility issues, July 27, 2007

By 

Lynn Harnett (Marathon, FL USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Last Goodbye (Hardcover)

His marriage finished, his business in shambles, ex-CIA agent Marcus Malone agrees to let the US government terminally trash his life in order to set him up to catch a terrorist with plans to level San Diego with a nuclear bomb. The breakneck pace and the hero's James Bondian skills make it work.

The secret ingredient to making this small, virtually undetectable nuclear device is Red Mercury and Malone's outlaw status makes him the perfect purveyor. There's only one snag - Malone has fallen in love. At about the time he gets the terrorist's attention, Karen Faulkner decides to come to Prague in search of her lover.

The terrorist is almost sympathetic, a stunted horror who survived Nagasaki but lost his family and any chance of normal life. One of life's pleasures is a "pipe garden" where he keeps prisoners confined underground in coffins, connected to the surface by a pipe for water, air, sustenance and sound. He wants revenge and now that he's contracted leukemia from the radiation exposure, he has little time left. No time for playing footsy with arms-dealer Malone.

There are lots of improbabilities but Bell keeps the action hopping and the love affair hot. There's plenty of spy craft detail and more than a few skin-of-the-teeth escapes.

5.0 out of 5 stars Tightrope Walker, October 3, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: The Last Goodbye (Hardcover)

I found this book exceptionally well done, since "Malcolm Bell," a "former government employee," has successfully walked the tightrope between being true to the intelligence biz, on the one hand, and writing an exciting story, on the other. Nearly all popular espionage fiction is laughable to anyone who has been in the business, but Bell has captured the true atmosphere without resorting to preposterous inventions. He also draws characters that we actually CARE about, which makes for sleepless nights. I had read this book when it was first published, then came across it and started, in an idle moment, reading it over again. It is as captivating the second time as it was the first, and I can think of no better test of an author's skill. Hopefully, "Mr. Bell" will give us more; I, for one, will be lined up with a fistful of dollars.