Last Ditch: A Leo Waterman Mystery - Softcover

Ford, G.M.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0380793695 ISBN 13: 9780380793693

Publisher: Avon, 2000

Synopsis

Seattle p.i. Leo Waterman knows the city like no one else. And he knows how to stretch the limits of the law, when necessary, to accomplish what needs to be done--a very useful talent Leo acquired from his late, larger-than-life father, once one of the region's most powerful and colorful political characters. But just how seriously Waterman senior transgressed during his time on Earth comes into question when one of "the Boys"--Leo's "residentially challenged" barfly allies--digs up a human skeleton in Dad's backyard.

The remains that remain belong to "Wild Bill" Waterman's staunchest foe--an ultra-conservative muckraking journalist who vanished mysteriously thirty years before. Leo has always struggled in his father's shadow--but he's convinced that his old man was much too savvy to have committed murder--let alone to have interred the victim in his own backyard. But in order to clear his father's damaged name, the dutiful son is going to have to start digging up a very dangerous past...and do his damnedest not to get buried beneath it.

 

Seattle p.i. Leo Waterman knows the city like no one else. And he knows how to stretch the limits of the law, when necessary, to accomplish what needs to be done--a very useful talent Leo acquired from his late, larger-than-life father, once one of the region's most powerful and colorful political characters. But just how seriously Waterman senior transgressed during his time on Earth comes into question when one of "the Boys"--Leo's "residentially challenged" barfly allies--digs up a human skeleton in Dad's backyard.

The remains that remain belong to "Wild Bill" Waterman's staunchest foe--an ultra-conservative muckraking journalist who vanished mysteriously thirty years before. Leo has always struggled in his father's shadow--but he's convinced that his old man was much too savvy to have committed murder--let alone to have interred the victim in his own backyard. But in order to clear his father's damaged name, the dutiful son is going to have to start digging up a very dangerous past...and do his damnedest not to get buried beneath it.

About this title

Review:

G.M. Ford's fifth book about Seattle private detective Leo Waterman begins with a backyard jolt: the Boys (a group of ancient alcoholics who Leo looks after) dig up the 30-year-old remains of a gay-bashing right-wing newspaper columnist named Peerless Price while doing some work on the grounds of the mansion belonging to Leo's late father, politician Wild Bill Waterman.

It looks very much as though Wild Bill did indeed shoot and bury his arch enemy. And precisely because both a starchy relative and the entire Seattle PD warn him against it, Leo proceeds to risk life, limb, and his ancient Fiat convertible to prove his father's innocence. What he finds out--from Wild Bill's old driver, an ex-cop called Bermuda Schwartz, and other assorted ghosts from the past--provides a wild and often touching story that combines recent headlines (about the smuggling of Chinese immigrants) with moments of personal pain. That same combination is present in Ford's other books about Waterman: Slow Burn, Who in Hell Is Wanda Fuca?, The Bum's Rush, and Cast in Stone. --Dick Adler

About the Author:

G.M. Ford is the author of six widely praised Frank Corso novels, Fury, Black River, A Blind Eye, Red Tide, No Man's Land, and Blown Away, as well as six highly acclaimed mysteries featuring Seattle private investigator Leo Waterman. A former creative writing teacher in western Washington, Ford lives in Oregon and is currently working on his next novel.

About this edition

• Publisher: Avon
• Publication date: 2000
• ISBN 10: 0380793695
• ISBN 13: 9780380793693
• Binding: Mass Market Paperback
• Number of pages: 320