The Last Good Guy

In bestseller Parker’s excellent third outing for San Diego, Calif., PI Roland Ford (after 2018’s Swift Vengeance), 28-year-old Penelope Rideout, whose parents died 10 years earlier in a car crash, hires Ford to locate her missing 14-year-old sister, Daley, who has a “wild streak.” When Ford goes to interview Nick Moreno, Daley’s 20-year-old “guaranteed loser” boyfriend, he ends up talking to some neighbors who saw Daley leaving Nick’s condo with “two men she seemed to know.” Inside the condo, Ford finds Nick shot to death. The ensuing search for Daley involves a megachurch and its charismatic pastor, an unusually secretive private security firm, and a decommissioned nuclear power plant. Parker seamlessly integrates the backstories of Daley and Penelope while interspersing Ford’s ruminations on his own troubled life (Ford is “the last good guy” of the title). The author does a masterly job of ratcheting up the tension, and the often lyrical prose is a pleasure to read. This entry could well earn three-time Edgar Award–winner Parker a fourth Edgar. [em]Author tour. Agent: Robert Gottlieb, Trident Agency. (Aug.) [/em]