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    Last Call
    Last Call
    Last Call
    Audiobook10 hours

    Last Call

    Written by James Grippando

    Narrated by Jonathan Davis

    4/5

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    About this audiobook

    A kid from Miami's meanest streets, Theo Knight lost his mother to a violent crime. He was on Death Row for a murder he didn't commit when lawyer Jack Swyteck proved him innocent. Now they are best friends. Theo is a semi-respectable and successful bar owner, but the past, with its risks and its terrors, has come knocking on his back door. An escaped convict from the old neighborhood wants sanctuary, and in return he is offering information: the identity of the killer who left Theo's mom lying dead in the street on a hot South Florida evening.

    Theo wants justice, but the answers are not simple. He and Jack must now piece together a twenty-year-old conspiracy of greed and corruption that's pointing toward the city's most elite and powerful. And digging through a history that Theo has struggled his whole life to forget could awaken some very desperate, very deadly sleeping dogs.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHarperAudio
    Release dateDec 18, 2007
    ISBN9780061572982
    Author

    James Grippando

    James Grippando is a New York Times bestselling author with more than thirty books to his credit, including those in his acclaimed series featuring Miami criminal defense attorney Jack Swyteck, and the winner of the Harper Lee Prize for Legal Fiction. He is also a trial lawyer and teaches law and literature at the University of Miami School of Law. He lives and writes in South Florida.

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    Reviews for Last Call

    4/5

    40 ratings21 reviews

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    • 5/5
      Excellent audiobook a fantastic and captivating story well read exquisite
    • 3/5
      My husband and I listened to this audio book on a trip. We both enjoy suspense/thriller/crime novels. This one borders on a 4 for me, but we agreed it's a 3. Well told, though I predicted (silently) early on one of the twists in the story. Engaging book that I think would be just as good read as read-to-you. Better than average for this type of book. There are enough characters for the reader to both cheer and boo for.
    • 5/5
      I'm a big fan of [author: Tim Powers]. He has this strange ability to take bizarre and disparate elements and weave them together into a cohesive and engaging story. This particular example of his work involves (among other things) poker, chaos theory, Jungian archetypes, Tarot, and The Fisher King. These things seem to have little or no relation to each other, but it all works, and it does so brilliantly. The best thing he's written, in my opinion.
    • 5/5
      This is the book that I give friends when I want them to be exposed to Tim Powers, and it hasn't failed me yet. Like most of Powers' work, it posits a "secret" or alternate version of the world, one where poker cards can determine your fate and a Las Vegas mobster can be the Fisher King. But it's also a narrative about family-the wounds of childhood (emotional and physical), the trials of love, and ways the past can haunt you. With compelling and rich characters, an engrossing and intricate mythology, and a fast-paced plot, this is one of my favorite books, re-read regularly.
    • 4/5
      It had been many years since I read this book, so all I really remembered going in was that it involved poker, superstitions, and California. Of course, as this is a book by Tim Powers, it was far more complex than that. I love Powers' ability to weave seemingly diverse concepts into a whole, and the way his stories make sense, if one can only bend one's mind into a pretzel. I also love the many literary references, although I'm sure I caught only the top of the iceberg.This book was crazy, wild, anxiety producing, and a whole lot of fun. Go read it.
    • 5/5
      Probably Powers' best novel. A blend of magic, poker, and chaos theory set in Las Vegas. The usual Powers suspects are here: The Grail, body swapping magicians, and Egyptian mythology, but with a new spin on them.Powers tried to unify this with his next novel, the vastly inferior Expiration Date in the novel after that Earthquake Weather, but neither of these quite lived up to the promise of Last Call. It wasn't until Declare that we got to see Powers back on form.
    • 4/5
      Tim Powers writes fantasy. Here’s what his fantasy doesn’t have: elves, orcs, trolls, dwarves, wizards (well, OK, it has some magicians sometimes), maps of imaginary countries, thick heroes to whom everything endlessly has to be explained.Tim Powers writes alternate history, but the ‘what ifs’ in Tim Powers novels are fantasy ‘what ifs’ rather than science-fictional ‘what ifs’: not ‘what if the Spanish Armada had conquered England’ but ‘what if the Egyptian gods were real and still out there, held at bay by the Christian God, and what if there was a powerful sect of sorcerers dedicated to bringing them back’? That was The Anubis Gates. In Last Call, the premise is simpler: what if Tarot Cards really do have power, and ordinary playing cards have a corrupted, cut-down version of that power? And what would that mean if you lived in Las Vegas?Start on a Tim Powers book, and you’re quickly thrust into a paranoid world in which nothing is an accident. As a professional gambler, Scott Crane is fairly susceptible to that point of view in any case, and things are getting worse, because he sold his soul nearly twenty-one years ago, and now the buyer is preparing to collect.The plot’s a roller-coaster ride which is well worth the price of admission, and in a few chapters, if you’re like me, Powers will have you taking for granted the most improbable things. Sit back and enjoy the ride.
    • 5/5
      There are some classic science fiction and fantasy novels that don't hold up when when you read them years later. This is not one of them. Now that I have lived in Las Vegas for four years, the book is actually better since I know the places that are described here. In one sense this novel is the oft told tale of the Fisher King. The old King fails and grows weaker, but tries for one more session on the throne he has stolen from his predecessor. But there are Jacks, possible kings in the making, just waiting for the King to make a mistake and take over the throne themselves. What makes this novel different and deeper is the solid reality of this magical story. The magic is a mixture of cigarette smoke, chaos theory, unlevel glasses, Tarot decks, body substitutions, and the Moon Goddess. Many of the tropes in Tim Powers more recent books are seen here; the Secret History, the power of alcohol and tobacco, the fringes of society that control primal forces. What makes it compelling are the characters of the old King, his son Scott Crane, Scott's foster father, Ozzie, and Scott's adopted sister, Diana.If you only read one Tim Powers book, read this one.
    • 3/5
      This is the first in a series of three books, the others being, "Expiration Date" and "Earthquake Weather". I don't know where the second and third books go, but I will get around to them eventually."Last Call" was entertaining and intriguing enough to keep me interested to the end. It involves poker playing and a magical power struggle that takes place in the contemporary (as of when it was written-1992) world of Las Vegas.Powers created good characters, put them in realistic emotional situations, and portrayed their actions well in those situations, albeit with a backdrop of magical kings, queens and godesses.Much play was made of the magical powers of chance and the concentration of the related forces in Las Vegas where chance is the focus of the towns existence.Apart from the magic and supernatural activities, "Last Call" is an action thriller with poker playing. A bit like Gandalf meets the Cincinati Kid.
    • 5/5
      good book. especially if you like fantasy. i recommend other tim powers books as well...
    • 4/5
      Enjoy this story quite a bit but could have done without the music between the chapters.

      Music lover I am but the music didn't fit the theme of the story at all!
    • 3/5
      I liked the characters, I was intrigued with the premise of the book, and I appreciated the fact that the answer to all of the questions raised throughout the story weren't obvious. My criticism is that I could put the book down, walk away, and pick it up and continue a few days later. A book categorized as "suspense" should keep you reading and make you unable to put that book down; the words should act like a magnet making it impossible for you to move on until you finish reading the last word on the last page. This book fell a little short in that respect.
    • 4/5
      A very good novel about ethic gangs in America, their love and loyalty towards each member, resulting in their tight bonding. It starts with Theo Knight, the younger of two brothers is out cruising around with members of the "Grove Lords," that he desperately wants to be part of, leader Isaac Reems says, " your anitsheation is to go over to this women that has just been stabbed too death and steal something from her and return, he does. The state charges and convicts him for murder, he's on death row waiting, when a criminal defense lawyer, Jack Swyteck, gets the charges dropped and his release from prison. Now 20 years later Theo is the owner of a bar in the Florida Keys, Sparky's Tavern, he's closing for the night when he notices someone hiding behind some kegs of beer. He immediately reaches into the cash draw to grab his 38, it's not there, the intruder has it, he then realizes the intruder is Isaac from the "Grove Lords," he has just escaped from prison and whats Theo's help. Theo's confussed on what to do, Isaac tells Theo that he knows who killed his mother, which was unbeknownst to him was the women that he stole the purse from years ago to prove his worth to the "Grove Lords." Now the story begins with the investigation of Isaac's escape, the murder and rape of Theo's mother, Portia and the cast of other characters weaved into the middle of this plot.
    • 4/5
      This is my third James Grippando book. I only vaguely remembered the previous two. The descriptions on the back keep making me interested and then the stories themselves are so-so. Of the three I've read, this one is the best. That said, the book is not truly suspenseful, and the plot twists were obvious. The characters were also pretty stereotypical.
    • 4/5
      Urban fantasy, set in Las Vegas, where a grittier, American-style version of the Fisher King legend is playing out, driven by the mechanisms of the tarot, which of course is being fueled by the amount of card play going on at any given moment. The whole thing is framed as a poker game, but I confess that I'm bad enough at following normal poker and thus didn't try very hard to parse out the mystical poker so I can't speak to how convincing that aspect is.This is the kind of fantasy book where a goodly number of the characters start off with complete knowledge of all the magic and the rules and have a good grasp of what's going on right out of the gate. I always find something slightly unsatisfying about this, as a fairly pragmatic person myself, it always helps when characters need to be convinced so that I can be convinced by proxy.Lately I've been finding that books written in the early 90s make the oddest impression on me because they seem both modern, and at the same time, positively in the Dark Ages because they're just a little before that technology crest that brought the internet and cell phones to the masses.Grade: BRecommended: This reminded me of things like American Gods and even a little of The Stand (but you know, shorter), and I think it has a similar appeal.
    • 4/5
      It's a great idea; There’s a cyclical battle to become The Fisher King, war waged by violence, gambling and magic. Souls are bought and sold, ghosts become real and the archetypes wait behind the tarot to give you power or drive you mad. The problem is about half way through the paces starts slowing a bit and by 3/4s the cracks in the plot are starting show. Although don't get me wrong it's still very readable but the direction the plot takes isn't as interesting as I thought it might be, partly because it needs a bit of tightening up but also its starts to get too pat: the ending is unsurprising and seems a bit forced.However did I mention the world? It's not spelt out in detail (which I love), its chaotic with a blend of religions and magic; tarot cards and ancient gods, chaos magicks and hidden royalty all blended in with the seedy side of crime. There are some great exciting action pieces, some wonderfully eccentric characters and Las Vegas makes a great backdrop. So I do recommend it, it's worth reading for the idea and none of it's boring, just the end is slightly disappointing.One for a long journey perhaps?
    • 5/5
      Exquisite book by Tim Powers that blends together the Tarot, poker, semi-ancient mythology, and Las Vegas in ways that I thought not possible. Highly recommended, and especially recommended for those who think that fantasy is all pointy ears and chainmail bikinis.
    • 4/5
      Theo is the main character is the newest edition to the Jack Swyteck series. Theo knew that his mother had been murdered when he was a teenager, but he was unaware of an earlier rape. A prison escape causes him to try to find the rapist and murderer, but Theo's life is also in danger.
    • 1/5
      This is by far the worst Tim Powers I have read. It is Powers, so there are vivid, hard to forget moments (the skinny man trying to get out, the inner dialog of Al Funo, etc). Alas, it is overall something of a mess. 1.15.07
    • 5/5
      One of my favorite books ever. A fantastic exploration of the Aurthurian myth translated into modern times, but no knowledge of Arthur required to love and appreciate this work.
    • 5/5
      One of my all time favorites and Powers best. There is so much going on in the book that it not only begs but demands to be re-read. One of the great all time fantasy novels.