From award-winning author Tom Piccirilli comes a wholly original crime novel introducing the Rands, a vipersΠ²Πβ’ nest of crooks and cons, one generation stealing from the next. Upon the razor-thin edge between love and violence lives a pair of brothers, their bonds frayed by betrayals and guilt, their loyalty to each other their last salvation.
Raised to pick a pocket before he could walk, Terry Rand cut free from his family after his older brother, Collie, went on a senseless killing spree that left eight dead. Five years later, only days before his scheduled execution, Collie contacts Terry and asks him to return home. Collie claims he wasnΠ²Πβ’t responsible for one of the murdersΠ²Πβand insists that the real killer is still on the loose.
Dogged by his own demons, Terry is swept back into the schemes and scams of his family: His father, Pinsch, a retired cat burglar, brokenhearted because of his two sons. His card-sharp uncles, Mal and Grey, whoΠ²Πβ’ve incurred the anger of the local mob. His grandfather, Shep, whose mind is failing but whose fingers can still slip out a walletΠΒ from across the room. His teenage sister, Dale, whoΠ²Πβ’s flirting dangerously with the lure of the family business. And Kimmie, the woman Terry abandoned, whoΠ²Πβ’s now raising a child with TerryΠ²Πβ’s former best friend. ΠΒ
Terry pieces together the day his brother turned rabid, delving into a blood history that reveals the Rand family tree is rotten to the roots, and the secrets his ancestors buried are now coming furious and vengeful to the surface.
A meditation on how love can confine a person just as easily as it can free him, juxtaposing shocking violence and sly humor, The Last Kind Words is the brilliantly inventive family saga that only a singular talent like Tom Piccirilli could conjure.