An excellent final instalment to a quartet of books that have not failed to engage and entertain throughout. I really did not want to finish this book as I was enjoying it so much. First class.

Private investigator Ida is ready to retire but when her name and number is found on the corpse of a victim of the Nightslayer, she is pulled back into another job. Army nurse Kerry is back from Vietnam, wounded but desperate to find her brother. Mob fixer Dante is also wanting to retire to Napa but he is asked to find the disappeared son of a well-connected mobster. All three find themselves pulled into something really big and complex involving government agencies who will stop at nothing, including hiring Fallon, a notorious serial assassin. Celestin's novels are always a ready great read and this is no exception. Beautifully pitched in the late 1960s when Hollywood was at the mercy of TV and the drugs scene was about to flip from heroin to cocaine, this story seems far-fetched but there are so many parallels to know facts. It seems a really long book but is so enjoyable that I just kept on and was well-rewarded. there is less Louis Armstrong here than before and that is good, a sign that Celestin trusts his characters to lead the narrative.

Four stars for this taut and moving finale in what I consider to be a modern crime fiction classic series. Celestin has weaved yet another fascinating tale around private detective Ida with Dante, Faron and Louis Armstrong also back again as the quartet wind down their careers in a blaze of glory, regret and acceptance. Celestin’s depiction of late 60s Los Angeles and the societal tension boiling underneath the surface is as atmospheric as usual, while his introduction of Kerry and the Vietnam aftermath is also handled well. I shall miss these characters.