by Ed McBain

Matthew Hope is at the end of his spiritual rope. He's divorced from his wife, recovering from a coma and tired of living in Calusa, Florida. When Jill Lawton hires him to find her husband, who's been seen 'up north' with another woman, Hope thinks it's just another failed marriage ... until a body washes up on the beach with no face and Jack Lawton's driver's license in his pocket.

Hope enlists the help of Steve Carella, from the 87th precinct, and together they find that the Lawtons weren't the wholesome, tennis club members that they appeared to be. Jack Lawton is planning to steal a prized Greek artifact from the Calusa museum. Jill has a plan of her own, and both of them are sleeping with Melanie Schwartz, who is also sleeping with Peter Donofrio and Ernest Corrington-both ex cons.

The Last Best Hope is a wild ride. It starts out as a sleepy, love-gone-bad story and twists itself into a tightly wound tale of murder, deception and kinky sex. Almost every character is unpredictable and almost every character is a suspect. Ed McBain's two series characters-Hope and Carella-make a powerful team and the friendship that develops through the book lends the story an important sympathetic element. -- Mara Friedman