Customer Reviews

The Last Nightingale: A Novel of Suspense (Mortalis)

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Less than two days after picking up the book I was done--would've been quicker, but sleep and work got in the way.

Of course I live 12 miles from San Francisco and loved the setting--made me want to learn more about this traumatic time in my local history.

If you don't mind a raw and gripping read, then Flacco delivers. However, he does owe me a couple hours sleep and may end up owing you the same.

Ron

Just over 100 years ago--1906--the Great Earthquake nearly destroyed San Francisco. Amidst the destruction and carnage, the Nightingale family was murdered, although the police observation at the scene attributed the deaths to the earthquake. Hidden in the house undetected was Shane, an adopted son, who heard the perpetrator talking to his victims as he slew them. When the carnage was over, Shane--the last Nightingale of the title--left the house and took refuge at the Mission Dolores, where he was given a job caretaking the cemetery, and a shed in which to live.

A larger-than-life police sergeant, Randall Blackburn, makes Shane's acquaintance when the boy writes him a note suggesting a motive for the murder of a prominent citizen for which Blackburne was assigned the investigation. Impressed with Shane's intuitive abilities, the policeman befriends the boy and tries to get him to assist in capturing a serial killer. Other relationships among the main characters develop, to a rousing conclusion.

The descriptions of the havoc caused by the earthquake are graphic, and the characterizations excellent. Written at a fast pace, the novel grips the reader from cover to cover. The book is among the first issued under the new Mortalis imprint.

A blurb on her website by author Cara Black led me to this book. She's right: you can't put it down.

Much maligned Sargeant Randall Blackburn, a widower who lost both wife and child during childbirth, is consigned to the graveyard shift on San Francisco's Barbary Coast. He's doggedly pursuing a female serial killer who castrates her victims on his beat.

His shift is ending as the 1906 earthquake rips the city apart.

Twelve-year-old Shane Nightingale loses his entire family in the aftermath of the quake--but not in the way one might expect. Traumatized, he's left alone to survive--with his wits and work ethic as his only assets.

Together after young Shane remarkably helps Blackburn solve a murder, they discover the identity of (and face off with) the sadistic Surgeon.

Anthony Flacco does an admirable job of capturing the Dickensian world of the Bay Area at the turn of the last century. It literally devolves into Hell on Earth after the quake. The characters leap off the page, and the relationship between Blackburn and Nightingale is most engaging.

THE LAST NIGHTINGALE is elegantly written and thoroughly engrossing. A must-read for crime and suspense junkies.

Anthony Flacco's The Last Nightingale is the first installment in a historical suspense series featuring San Francisco's policeman Randall Blackburn and a 12 year old orphan named Shane Nightingale, that together match minds to catch a serial killer terrorizing the town during the heyday era of the city's infamous shady section called the Barbary Coast.

While the city shivers and shakes during it's worst earthquake in 1906, adopted Shane Nightingale is hiding in a pantry closet. He is not there to protect himself from the quake, he is silently imprisoned, frightened to breathe as an unknown killer is just outside that door hideously murdering his family. For almost two days Shane is held captive behind the door, afraid to come out due to his own fear that the murderer is still there, and out of shame for not coming to the rescue as his mother and sisters were brutally slain. But as the earthquake's fires creep up to Shane's home, he is forced to leave the shelter of his pantry closet and venture out, do or die before he is trapped in the flames.

Sergeant Randall Blackburn is on a serious murder case, attempting to hunt and track down the elusive Surgeon, a perp that appears to be a woman hell-bent on slicing and dicing the good men of San Francisco. Told by his superiors to find this killer or else, circumstances have Blackburn introduced to the adorable and charming Shane Nightingale, a boy with talented deductive skills that would have Sherlock Holmes turning on his heels in wonder.

The complex plot that offers up unforeseen twists and turns that involve who the murderer is, the strange motive, and the shocking truth as to how Shane is related, allows this fabulous suspense novel to keep the reader glued to the page from start to finish without coming up for air. There is not a lot of action here, and I wouldn't say the level of suspense was of the "on the edge of your seat" variety, yet this is still an excellent novel offering up a ingenious story of crime blended with a history lesson of early San Francisco and a cast of loveable characters that will return in the sequel The Hidden Man. I found this literary mystery both frightening and charming, and I eagerly await reading the next installment. Full ranking of five stars!

It is Wednesday, April 18, 1906, 5:12 A.M. Sergeant Randall Blackburn makes his way back to the City Hall Station after a long night's beat patrolling San Francisco's seamy waterfront district, the "Barbary Coast." He is dissatisfied with his job and his life. Blackburn is permanently assigned to the dangerous district, a strip of "bottom-feeder saloons and dead-end flophouses." Since he lost his young wife and daughter during childbirth, a year ago, the police chief deems the sergeant's life more expendable than the lives of his fellow colleagues, who have families and more to lose if business gets really rough.

Aside from the normal violence the sergeant deals with every night, a string of heinous murders is terrifying even the toughest Barbary Coast inhabitant. A serial killer, known as "The Surgeon," is on the loose and hard at work. The murderer, thought to be a woman, kills her victims, all men, by knifing them at the back of the neck, splitting the spinal cords with a thick blade. She finishes the job, postmortem, by castrating her victims with precision and skill. Not a single corpse was robbed. On several occasions, a "small framed woman" was seen hurrying away from the crime scene.

As Blackburn wends his way back to the station, the ground rocks beneath his feet, throwing him to the ground. The massive tremors, heaving streets, enormous fires, the victims' screams, the terrible destruction and death, are vividly described by the author. The chaos is unimaginable. Many of the city's inhabitants believe that the Great Earthquake is the day of reckoning for the immoral masses, especially for those along the Barbary Coast.

For hours before the earthquake hits, and for a short time afterwards, twelve year-old Shane Nightingale, hides in the kitchen cupboard and witnesses the violent deaths of his adoptive mother and sisters at the hands of a brutal killer. The earthquake provides cover for the monster, as he takes the time to overturn tables, chairs and a large breakfront on top of the dead woman, making it look like they were killed during the quake. Shane is traumatized and filled with guilt at not having saved his new mother and foster sisters.

The boy wanders the streets and meets Sergeant Blackburn under the most unusual of circumstances. For me, the relationship between the boy and the lonely cop is the heart of the story - believable, fascinating and touching. As Blackburn discovers, Shane has a real knack for crime solving. The policeman wonders what kind of prior existence Shane has lived to understand the nature of crime and the minds of those who commit them.

The pace is fast and picks up even more as the city's inhabitants cope with the earthquakes aftermath and the police, Blackburn in particular, track down the "Surgeon" before she/he can kill again.

This historical thriller is loaded with suspense. The characters are well developed and sympathetic, except for the serial killer, of course. It is a relatively short book but loaded with surprises - lots of twists and turns. And author Anthony Flacco's afterward, called "Dossier: The Last Nightingale" is fascinating. Highly recommended.
Jana Perskie

The Hidden Man: A Novel of Suspense (Mortalis)

Flacco takes a fresh approach to a crisis situation such as the 1906 San Francisco Earthquake.

How many of us have found ourselves suddenly bonded and dependent on people we otherwise may never have known or been close to?

The backdrop and story of the earthquake are known, but the finely honed look underneath the rubble is what makes this book so compelling.

Flacco does a great 360 on each charater, major and minor. What struck me as unusually sensitive and frustrating at the same time is Shane's, the adopted boy, terror and resultant inability to speak after a terrifying "witness" to his families slaughter.

I can guarantee a great read.

The strengths of "The Last Nightingale" by Anthony Flacco are not what you'd expect from a murder mystery based around a serial killer named "The Surgeon." The two greatest advantages this book has are its period setting (the 1906 San Francisco earthquake and fire) and the relationship between two of the main characters, Sergeant Randall Blackburn and Shane Nightingale, a 12-year old boy who becomes the unexpected target of the killer's next thrill. The relationship that develops between the two loners--Sergeant Blackburn and Shane--is the real heart of the story. Each helps the other out in a city of wandering ghosts, people so devastated by what has happened to the city and their lives that they can hardly look beyond their own grief and ruined lives to help another.

Author Anthony Flacco makes a big impression with his opening descriptions of the 1906 quake and subsequent fires. He tells this so convincingly that, as readers, we can begin to imagine what the city and the earthquake's chaos must feel like. The first attack by "The Surgeon" is set amidst this chaos, and Shane Nightingale is there to witness the horror, unbeknownst to the killer. This, of course, makes him a target later in the story. Through Shane's eyes we see the individual heartache that both the serial killer and the earthquake have wrought.

Through the eyes of Sergeant Blackburn, we see the city's problems at the administrative level: coping with the physical destruction, the loss of life, raging fires, the possibility of the spread of disease, and the continuing challenges of policing a wayward city. His quest is one man's journey to do his job to the best of his ability while entrenched in his own grief.

Shane and the Sergeant meet under the most unusual of circumstances, but we feel it's fated from the beginning of the story. This relationship is very strong and the most interesting one in the story. The serial killer was a lot less interesting by comparison. Although the author throws a few twists and turns in the story in an attempt to jolt us with the unexpected, for me, it felt a little flat.

Those who know and love San Francisco (I used to live there) will find themselves following along familiar streets and neighborhoods in the story. The description of the earthquake and its aftermath are powerfully done as well. However, I think that the weakest link in the story is that of the serial killer. There's still much to enjoy about the book, and it's a quick (if gruesome) read.

Anthony Flacco is my new favorite crime fiction novelist, and his trio of Blackburn, Shane, and Vignette my new favorite crime fighting trio. His novel of murder and treachery in the aftermath of the great San Francisco earthquake will grab you and not let go, but it's the characters you will never forget. Give this one a try - it will not disappoint!

The novel opens with an introduction to Sgt. Randall Blackburn of the SFPD as he finishes his night shift rounds in the early morning hours of April 18, 1906. Before he can return to the station house, it strikes - the great earthquake . . . and then the fires. What follows is a description of the carnage so vivid that you'd swear the author had witnessed it himself.

Against the backdrop of the resulting chaos, operates a serial killer known as "The Surgeon." During a particularly gruesome murder of the Nightingale family, we are introduced to twelve-year-old Shane Nightingale, unseen witness of the torture and murder of his recently adopted mother and sisters.

After reading of an unrelated murder in the paper, Shane instinctively knows who the murderer is and sends a note to Sgt. Blackburn. Based on that note, Sgt. Blackburn is able to break down the suspect and get a confession. Impressed by Shane's insights, Sgt. Blackburn seeks him out and the heart of the novel unfolds - the bond that forms between the widower, Blackburn, and the orphan, Shane.

Once "The Surgeon" learns that there is a surviving Nightingale, he devotes his efforts to eliminating that "loose end," which leads to the novel's suspenseful conclusion.

My only complaint is that the "ride" is over too soon. I'm eagerly awaiting the second installment in January.