The Last Hand by Eric Wright (Dundurn), 232 pages, $29.99 cloth. Rating: NNN
parked in a desk job just months before his mandatory retirement deadline, high-ranking Toronto cop Charlie Salter worries about how he’ll cope after he leaves the police force — and fears he may be losing his memory.It doesn’t help that interdepartmental jealousies are keeping him stuck in the role of glorified receptionist for the deputy chief during his last few months on the job.
So when political pressures prevail and Salter has the opportunity to pick up the investigation of a months-old murder case, the frustrated detective leaps on it. He’s almost alone in his belief that the missing prostitute implicated in the death of an MPP’s lawyer brother may not be exactly what her big blond wig and silver boots suggest.
The deeper he digs, the surer Salter becomes that there are fewer kinks in the victim’s sex life than in his legal practice — and in the professional lives of the people he dealt with.
Since Salter’s already at the end of an illustrious career, sleuthing is no longer his primary concern. In what author Eric Wright hints is the final police procedural for the hero of 10 previous mysteries in this Edgar Award-winning series, the soon-to-be- washed-up cop is preoccupied with sorting through his relationships with his wife and sons, and his sons’ relationships with their lovers.
Then everything — personal and professional — snaps together during a poker game.
Write Books at susanc@nowtoronto.com
