Customer Reviews

Last Lullaby: An Eve Diamond Novel (Eve Diamond Novels)

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

this novel is one of the few books that I failed to finish. I struggled through to page 156 and felt that the plot still had not developed. Decided that it was time to give it away as I felt that it was never going to get better.

Reading an Eve Diamond novel is like going on a ride at Disney. You truly believe you are experiencing every twist and turn in the plot until the ride ends and you realize how much you enjoyed the delusion. Hamilton's Los Angeles is as grity and tough as it is intimate and vulnerable and her protagonist reflects the City in which she grew up. In this episode Eve is trying to rescue an infant who is a pawn in some unknown scheme involving Asian drug trafficking, the INS, and a reknowned human rights attorney. Eve doggedly pursues this story while also grappeling with her feelings for her current lover and a past lover who has mysteriously reappeared in her life. We can"t help but root for this gutsy heroine as she follows confusing leads to a deadly conclusion. I would give more than five stars to this entire series if I could. Read them all!!

Los Angeles Times reporter Eve Diamond wants out of the boring suburban beat that she covers; her goal being real news. In her endeavor to prove to the editors that she is more than fluff, Eve follows US Customs Agent William Maxwell on his job at LAX. Suddenly the Los Angeles airport turns into a war zone. When the dust clears, three are dead including an Asiatic mother whose apparent husband vanished and the two-year-old girl she held in her arms abducted by apparently the INS.

Eve believes the INS snatched the toddler with plans to deport the kid. She decides to track down the missing child to try to learn why the killings occurred. However, as she makes little headway Eve soon realizes that other people, deadly and hostile, also seek to locate and snatch the kid. The few clues Eve uncovers lead to Serey Rath, who Eve trails in hopes of learning the truth. However, her personal life begins to interfere with her professional investigation as her former lover Tim Waters and her current beau Silvio Aguilar (see SUGAR SKULL) pull her in several directions, but mostly away from solving the case of the missing child.

Though the subplots at times overwhelm the prime theme of how far a parent goes for their child, fans will want to take this LA joy ride with Eve. The story line is exciting as Eve struggles between her suddenly complex personal life and her need to find the lost child before the wrong people capture the little girl. LAST LULLABY is a diamond of an investigative tale that the audience will enjoy even while parents will ponder the key question.

Harriet Klausner

I love the Eve Diamond series and would recommend it, as well as her other 'stand alone' novels, to any reader of mysteries and LA noir fans. That said, this was my least favorite of the series. The timing just seemed off, the characters were rote in their behaviour. If you read the series, many loose ends are tied up in this book but that somehow took away from the plot and case she was working on. I'm a big fan of the series, and suggest reading them in order (Jasmine, Sugar Skull, this one, Savage Garden). However, this one leaves a little bit of an aftertaste.

Hamilton's hero, Eve Diamond, continues her adventures, both journalistic and romantic in this latest installment in the series. Eve, the daughter of a Russian émigré, lives in an artsy multi-cultural community near Downtown Los Angeles, Los Feliz, and pursues her journalistic trade throughout the city. Her specialty seems to be stories involving adolescents but she follows other leads as well. In this book she is following a story involving the adoption of children from Asia.

In an interesting parallel she also discovers she is pregnant by Silvio, her latest amour. She has not seen him much due a court case and so she is feeling lonely and emotionally vulnerable when an old love shows up.

Eve is a complex and interesting character. This latest installment brings more passion and personality into the Eve Diamond series.

Michael Connelly move over and make room for Denise Hamilton. Hamilton, a former Times reporter turned novelist--like Connelly--sets her novels against the backdrop of the City of the Angles, Los Angeles, California. Along with a Times reporter, Eve Diamond, the multi-cultural city serves as a fascinating character in Hamilton's novels, a gritty and ever changing protagonist, which she depicts with a skill that hasn't been seen since the days when Philip Marlowe cruised those dark and mean streets in Raymond Chandler's magnificent novels of the golden age. Although Hamilton's excellent writing is reminiscent of days gone by, the plot of "Last Lullaby" is as fresh as tomorrow's headlines and a hell of a lot more fun and exciting. Advice for those who crave terrific mysteries and outstanding entertainment, buy her books!

Denise Hamilton, a Los Angeles-based reporter turned novelist, is one of the brightest new talents to enter crime fiction over the last few years. With her third book, Last Lullaby, she once again confirms that promise with a gripping, action-packed work that ought to bring her books to a much wider audience.

After two fascinating explorations of L.A.'s ethnic subcultures, this time Hamilton has produced a more conventionally directed mystery that is focused on an intense story about child abductions and the underground market for overseas adoptions.

As with the author's first two novels, Los Angeles Times reporter Eve Diamond pursues the investigation and her own conflicted emotions about motherhood, as well as her concern for a lost child, drawing her deep into a dangerous situation.

Diamond is one of the best characters in a currently ongoing series. She is sympathetic and believable, and generally acts with intelligence and reason, qualities unfortunately rare in the modern mystery. She also has the right mix of street smarts, sass and vulnerability to draw the reader's interest and concern.

Reviewed by David Montgomery, Chicago Sun-Times

On reading this third Eve Diamond novel, I was immediately struck by how similar Eve Diamond is to Benjamin Justice, the main protagonist from the hugely successful series of novels by John Morgan Wilson. Both characters are journalists; both have inner demons that are gradually exorcised; both are violently tortured and suffer physical loss, and both are intrepid journalists, who are bright, intelligent and can smell a good story. Perhaps the only real differences are that Eve Diamond is a little younger, straight, and lives in the funky Silver Lake which is closer to Downtown Los Angeles, whereas Benjamin Justice is gay, lives in the "boys town" of West Hollywood, and is a little more cynical and world weary. It would make a fascinating story, if at some time in the future, Denise Hamilton and John Morgan Wilson could pool their extremely talented resources, and have Eve and Benjamin team up. Both authors know Los Angeles well, and they know their characters, so it would be quite absorbing to have Eve and Benjamin working mutually in their relentless quest for justice on L.A.'s dingy and nasty streets.

Denise Hamilton just keeps getting better. In the Last Lullaby there is so much more depth and detail - the plotting is tighter and the action and suspense is fully maintained and flows completely throughout. This story is perhaps the most exciting, suspenseful and challenging adventure yet for Eve Diamond, as she is pitted against Asian drug cartels, and is forced to face the harsh realities of her own failed relationships. While spending the day at LAX shadowing U.S. Customs Supervisor William Maxwell, Eve witnesses a terrible shoot out - three people are dead and an Asian girl is whisked away by the INS into hiding. In an effort to find out who the little girl is, Eve is caught up in a tale of intrigue, involving crooked government agents, shady adoption agencies, and duplicitous immigration lawyers. Things are never what they seem, and the subterranean currents of life, churn and bubble up to the surface, as Eve, haunted by her one true love Tim, is forced into a personal mélange of emotion and grief.

The relationships between the mother and her child, the way one human being treats another, the destruction of innocent lives, and how noble abstractions can go terribly wrong, are the central themes of Last Lullaby. Hamilton forces the reader to confront the cold, hard reality of a world, where in many cases, children are treated like products to be bought and sold, and teenagers grow up directionless without parental guidance and assistance. Hamilton has a tremendous passion for Los Angeles, and without judgment, she portrays a complex, dynamic, and at times, chaotic city with its asphalt flats, crammed to overflowing with people and shops, and "bristling with a manic immigrant energy rolling off the heavily congested boulevards." This is a good, solid thriller that not only says something about the world around us but also shows the character of Eve Diamond at her journalistic best. Mike Leonard April 04.

Denise hamilton is getting better with each book.
I love the character of Eve Diamond and the authenticity
with which she is written.

Last Lullaby starts out in an airport with Eve
doing a story on the state of security. In a matter
pf pages all hell has broken loose. In the aftermath
a child is found, the people who were with here are missing
or dead.

As Eve searches for answers she finds herself getting deeper
and deeper into a myatery and deeper into trouble.

The pacing in this book is amazing and has such a wonderful flow
that I felt I was being pulled foward by it. And even after
finishing scenes stayed with me.

An outstanding book.

Jon Jordan - author of Interrogations
a book of author interviews