Review by Booklist Review
Longtime Spillane collaborator Max Allan Collins notes in his introduction that The Last Stand is the final manuscript completed by Spillane before his death in 2006. It's a hell of a way to wrap up a legendary writing career. Pilot Joe Gillian is forced to land his small plane in the middle of the desert. He's trying to figure out what to do when Pete, a Native American, turns up. After a bit of lively verbal fencing, each man getting a read on the other, they head off toward civilization. Along the way, Joe finds an arrowhead that Pete spots as very valuable. Joe is skeptical, but he changes his mind when others show up looking for the arrowhead some of them not at all friendly about it. Though the book was written late in Spillane's life, it has a strong 1950s flavor, with sharp, quickly sketched characters and snappy dialogue typical of the author in his prime. As a bonus, the book includes a newly discovered, unfinished story from the 1950s, A Bullet for Satisfaction, which has been completed by Collins.--Pitt, David Copyright 2018 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
At the start of this final novel by MWA Grand Master Spillane (1918-2006), prepared for publication by Spillane expert Max Allan Collins, pilot Joe Gillian makes a forced landing in his vintage plane somewhere in "John Wayne country." Joe soon encounters Sequoia Pete, a Native American whose horse has tossed and deserted him. They join forces to trek the grueling 50 miles across the desert back to the rez, noshing on a rattlesnake along the way. When Joe happens upon an arrowhead made of an unknown substance, Pete identifies it as an ancient rarity. This find looms large as the plot expands to include FBI agents and ruthless gangsters. Once on the rez, they're greeted by Pete's beauteous sister, Running Fox. A lengthy build-up to the book's action set piece-a mano-a-mano battle between Joe and Big Arms, an enormous brute who intends to obliterate him because he's wooing Running Fox-has a satisfying payoff with a rather touching aftermath. More adventure yarn than mystery, this is a worthy coda to Spillane's remarkable career in his centennial year. (Mar.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Kirkus Book Review
Legendary pulpmeister Spillane's final completed novel and a novella from half a century earlier are published for the first time to mark the centenary of the author's birth.In his Introduction, Max Allan Collins, the frequent collaborator of Spillane's later years, notes the bedrock importance of revenge to the author's most characteristic work. That's an acute observation about A Bullet for Satisfaction, presumably written in the early 1950s, in which Homicide Capt. Rod Dexter, kicked off both the investigation into political kingpin Mayes Rogers' murder and the Gantsville police force when he accuses District Attorney Frank Graham of being a rotten apple, goes into Mike Hammer mode, cleansing Gantsville by summary violence. But it's much less true of The Last Stand, a far less action-driven and even (gasp!) meditative tale in which pilot Joe Gillian, stranded in God's country when his ancient airplane conks out, bonds with Sequoia Pete and his Native American community over an arrowhead Joe's found that seems to be a source of limitless energy. His plane fixed by Pete's predictably beautiful sister, Running Fox, who just happens to have an engineering degree, Joe's about to return to what passes for civilization when he spots something from the air that makes him turn back and plunges himwell, dips him gentlyinto a tussle over the treasure sought for years by old Miner Moe. Not even the involvement of the FBI and Joe's conflict with Big Arms, a battler who correctly reads Joe as a rival for Running Fox's affections, can turn up the heat on this surprisingly tranquil valedictory.Spillane hot and cool, standard-issue and contemplative: a volume that bookends his storied career even more appropriately than the recent collection A Long Time Dead (2016). Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
