Customer Reviews

Last Rights

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

This is the first book I have read of Philip Shelby. I usually read Sci-Fi books, but I was glad that I picked this book up. The mystery that surrounds every character keeps you wanting to know what was going to happen next. There were good twists in the book aswell which added intrigue to the plot. If anyone has read 'The Firm' by John Grishman, they will like this book. As I found it better than 'The Firm'. Cannot wait to read another book by Shelby

This thriller has all the features of its genre, plus some. A crooked judge, assassins galore, terrorists before the ones we are aware of, and secret agents (all using false names). No one is who he or she claims to be. This is right down Eddy Roy's alley, but I can't for the life of me remember the author he is devoted to and buys all his books.

Sarah Martindale, Wink's sister (not her real name), Rachel used to book a flight from Baltimore to Atlanta. I hope she had proper ID. On my first solo flight, I ran in panic to the nearest phone when ID was required. I had my own, but not for the name on the ticket. It was a last minute gift. Since Lee wasn't at home to verify he had given me the round trip to Chicago, I was finally allowed to use it for the last empty seat. She is a secret agent, a strong woman with military training.

Little did she know that the assignation was closely monitored and thwarted. The Engineer was determined to get her out of the way any way he could. Steven Copeland should never have gone into the hotel sauna alone. The depraved Engineer got to him first. "We don't believe in virtues, that some things are good and others evil. Consequences. That's what we knw for sure, the only thing we hold true." His soul "was utterly rotted away." He was the very essence, the presence of evil. That's how Philip uses dialogue, choppy and to the point. Not much elaboration or explanation. It gets old after awhile. So much blood and gore, you'd think you were in Baghdad. There was much evasion of the truth and delusion -- too much, in fact. The Engineer turned out to be David McFadden of Hong Kong. What business of his would it be if a black man were elected V. P. of the United States in the first place. He was just doing what he was paid to do, as was she in trying to protect the rights of U. S. citizens.

Philip Shelby has once again delivered a blockbuster! Once I started reading, I couldn't put the book down. At first, the threads of the story are delivered very quickly - the "accidental" death of a prominent Afro-American general with political potential, the female Army officer who suspects murder, the tip to the Baltimore police about an Army sergeant suspected of illegal arms dealing- these & more threads seem to be disjointed. But Shelby brings them all together in a series of events that seem plausible & very natural. Even with the White House involvement, the book never, in my opinion, borders on fantasy. You find yourself in the middle of the book "cheering" for the good gal & guys. Shelby's main character, Rachel Collins, comes across as being a "normal" person. The author even leaves room for the possibility that Rachel will be around for another novel. Perhaps with a love interest?!!!? GREAT BOOK

Writers of conspiracy-type thrillers are a dime a dozen these days. The field is ripe for a realistic portrayal of this genre due to the political movements in this and other countries within the last decade. With all of the pages being printed, how does one distinguish him or herself above the rest of the crowd?

Ultimately, this comes down a believable plot, an interesting protagonist, and good supporting characters. It is in all of these three areas that Philip Shelby1s new novel, Last Rights, shines brightly. Like its predecessor Days of Drums, the setting of this novel is Washington, DC Two events in different parts of the DC area -- the killing of a suspect who is stealing arms from an Army depot and the declaration from a committee that General North, an African-American who is probably going to become the next vice-president of the United states, was killed in a tragic accident due to pilot error -- provide the catalyst for Warrant Officer Rachel Collins to investigate further. When her mentor is killed while working on the case, Rachel realize that the killer is one step ahead of her and she must act quickly and decisively to discover his or her identity.

While the plot of this novel, like many others, is fast-paced and riveting, the true strength of this book is the well-drawn protagonist Rachel Collins as well as a wealth of supporting characters who come vividly to life on the page. If one is interested in getting an introduction to this genre of fiction, Last Rights has staked a strong claim to being placed at the head of the class.

Robert Ludlum's mantel has rightfully fallen to Philip Shelby, but unlike Ludlum his protagonist, Rachel, is a credible physically-fit smart woman--not larger than life as Ludlum was prone to make his heroic characters, who could be half dead but they could still run across roof tops for five pages afterwards without a murmur of pain. He keeps a taut pace, and the story races forward without the constant circling back to redundant information that plagues many authors' works. An explosive page turner with a fascinating psychopathic villian, the Engineer. A must read worth five-stars.

This political / action thriller revolves around the murder of a Colin Powell-type successful black general that was staged to look like a plane crash. Army Warrant Officer Rachel Collins discovers a clue to the actual cause of the general's death while investigatig another crime and a nation-wide chase ensues while victims fall all over the place at the hand of the professional assassin "The Engineer."

It started out slow but the middle part of the book is really quite good. Shelby creates good tension and the main characters get banged up most thoroughly and realistically.

After reading Shelby's very good first thriller, Days Of Drums, I was somewhat disappointed in Last Rights. I found the story started out with a lot of excitement but soon dragged -- and continued to do so for much too long a stretch. The last quarter generated excitement once again but by that point I had pretty much stopped caring about the outcome. The greatest thrill for me was coming to the final page so I could move on to my next book. Shelby's writing style holds your interest, but this "thriller", while fairly fast-paced, turned out to be much too predictable and, thus, not very thrilling. I was especially looking forward to reading this book after reading some of the earlier reader reviews. However, as you can see, my reading experience with Last Rights differed from theirs. Now, if you're in the mood for a good thriller in the same vein, try David Hackworth's The Price Of Honor.

Good, fast-paced read. Attractive, courageous heroine using intelligence, analysis, foils a daunting panorama of bad villains - intelligently and carefully conceived. The good folks are committed to justice regardless of cost, and the bad folks love mayhem and destruction for its own sake. WDC base.

Retired General Griffin North is considered a strong possibility of being the first African-American President. However, all that changes when the General dies in a plane crash that transportation crash investigators believe is an accident. Major Mollie Smith of the Army's Criminal Investigation Division has doubts about the finding. She believes that the General was the victim of an assassination to insure that the White House remains white. As Mollie investigates the case, she becomes the next victim.
....... Her protege Warrant Officer Rachel Collins starts to look into the two deaths, especially that of her best friend. However, as she weeds through a series of red herrings and gets closer to solving the case, she finds herself as the next target of the killers, who do not care who they murder in order to insure their secrets stay hidden.
....... LAST RIGHTS is an appealing book to fans of conspiracy tales. Rachel is an interesting character whose activities as a CID agent comes across most believable. However, Philip Shelby has to many spices blended into his stew, thereby leaving most readers struggling with to many sub-plots to adequately appreciate the fast-paced, colorful story line..

.......Harriet Klausner

Plain and simple, I liked this book. Another, at least for me, page turner. I haven't read anything else written by P. Shelby, but I just might, because he impressed me.

As simple as that.