Don't Ever Look Back
by
Daniel Friedman
Order:
USA
Can
Minotaur, 2015 (2014)
Hardcover, Softcover, CD, e-Book
Reviewed by Hilary Williamson
B
uck Schatz is a fantastic mystery antihero, a hard-boiled dick of the old school. I delighted in his debut in
Don't Ever Get Old
and am happy to find him still with us for this encore (he is eighty-eight years old, after all!)
A
fter injuries sustained in
Don't Ever Get Old
, Buck and his wife Rose have had to sell their home and move to the Valhalla Estates Lifestyle Community for Older Adults, where Buck can have badly needed rehab treatment. He's constantly in trouble with the staff, even though he now needs a walker to get around.
T
his mystery begins with a visit from an old nemesis of Buck's, master criminal Elijah who had '
emptied more banks than the panic of 1929.
' Daniel Friedman moves his story back and forth in time to show the relationship between past encounters and Buck's current challenges with Elijah. A concentration camp survivor, the latter feels that as '
society's eternal outsiders
', Jews have every right to transgress.
E
lijah tells Buck that his enemies are about to kill him and that he wants Buck to set up police protection for him. So Buck calls his only remaining police contact, young officer Andre Price and they set up a meet. When everything goes badly awry and he ends up back in hospital, it's rather late for Buck to recall how Elijah conned him in the past.
D
espite the mystery's title, it's looking back on the past that helps Buck solve the present puzzle of what Elijah us up to, because the '
weakness of every lock is the man with the key
'. I love this series and will follow it as long as Buck lasts. Enjoy
Don't Ever Look Back
and don't miss the
Author's Note
about the grandfather who was Buck's inspiration.
Note: Opinions expressed in reviews and articles on this site are those of the author(s) and not necessarily those of BookLoons.
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