A city emerges from the ashes . . . and so does a killer concealed in its shadows.
Nine years after San Franciscos great earthquake and fires, the city is just beginning to be reborn and is full of possibility. The Worlds Fair is opening to herald the completion of the Panama Canal and display exciting wonders and the promise of the new technological age.
Yet the primitive past haunts the citys renaissance. Leaving a trail of brutality, a murderous fanatic secretly stalks one of the fairs chief attractions: the brilliant mesmerist James J. D. Duncan. Homicide detective Randall Blackburn and his adopted son, Shane Nightingale, must combine their intuitive profiling skills deductive techniques to solve a murder that hasnt happened yet . . . one that only its terrified intended victim can see coming.
Praise for Anthony Flaccos The Last Nightingale
Flacco imagines the chaos [of the 1906 San Francisco earthquake] in precise and vivid detail while contributing his own distinctive narrative touch.
The New York Times
Gripping . . . [Flaccos] screenwriting talent shines in this story of the earths destructive power and humanitys moral depravity. . . . Dickens meets Hannibal Lecter. Brace yourself.
Booklist
A frightening and haunting picture of a ruined city staggering back to reality.
The Washington Times
From the Trade Paperback edition.
From Booklist
Randall Blackburn and his adoptive son, Shane Nightingale (The Last Nightingale, 2007), return in another unconventional thriller, this time set at the1915 Pan Pacific International Exposition in San Francisco. James Duncan, a famous mesmerist performing at the fair, requests the services of detective Blackburn to discover the killer in a very unusual homicidehis own. Blackburn and son ferret out the complex hidden motives and subconscious influences that drive criminal obsession and intricate deception while at the same time dealing with their own emotional issues. Duncans high-profile performance nearly crashes when he cant recall the key phrase to bring his subjects out of their hypnotic trance, leaving the audience and the reader on tenterhooks. This is a story of secrets: secret shame, secret pain, and secret ugly desires that drive people to commit atrocious acts. Flaccos screenwriting skills bring an already suspenseful story to a visceral level as the reader ever-so-slowly discovers the elusive connections among characters and the inexorable pull of fate. Suggest this to readers of Joanne Harris Gentlemen and Players (2006) and Wesley Staces By George (2007). --Jen Baker
About the Author
Anthony Flacco is the author of * The Hidden Man, The Last Nightingale*, and two non-fiction books:* A Checklist for Murder and Tiny Dancer*. He began his writing career as a staff writer at several prominent Chicago theatres. He was selected for the highly prestigious American Film Institute fellowship in Screenwriting and received his MFA in Screenwriting in 1992. He was the recipient of the AFI Paramount Fellowship Screenwriting Award for his script,* The Frog's Legacy*, and was selected as a winner of The Walt Disney Studios Screenwriting Fellowship, and spent a year writing for the Touchstone Pictures division.Anthony is a member of the Writers Guild of America (WGA), Mystery Writers of America, and the International Thriller Writers organization. He lives on Bainbridge Island off the coast of Seattle.
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