THE LAST WHISPER IN THE DARK by Tom Piccirilli

"You're a killer Terrier  I don't know who you've murdered but I can see its taint on you. You're my kind. We know about the disappeared, you and I. We know where the vanished are hidden."

I'm so happy I discovered Tom Piccirilli. It's so awesome when you discover writers who seem to write work specifically for you, books that are exactly what you want to read. 

This novel, which I believe was his final full-length one before his death, takes up several months after the events in The Last Kind Words, and features cat burglar Terrier Rand coming to terms with his actions in that book while still struggling with his place in his criminal family and still pining for the woman he abandoned. 

While the plot here isn't as focused as The Last Kind Words (he cast a wider net in this one, focusing on a number of different plot threads), Tom Pic outdoes himself here in his prose. He's a real writer's writer and has an almost perfectly-honed way with words that's really impressive to me. This is a crime novel more about the characters than about the crimes themselves and the book continues to effectively illustrate Terry, his family, and the rest of the supporting characters in a way that sets it apart from so many novels of its kind.  

In both this book and its predecessor, Terry struggles with avoiding the burden of his family's reputation and legacy but must confront the possibility that he must come to accept it, like it or not. One of the most interesting ideas is that his whole family is fucked up in a variety of ways, but the only one that seemed to be completely at peace was Collie, his late brother from the previous book that gave up the struggle fighting his urges and went on an unapologetic killing spree. Is that the answer...that Terrier just has to give in to his nature to finally be at peace with himself?

The underneath called to me and begged me to fire, to murder, to die. It promised me the end of anguish and a proper understanding of purpose.

It's not a feel-good read at all, so stay away if you're looking for something lighter. But as usual the author really knows how to nail poetic and powerful catharsis and like most of Pic's work it is a melancholy look at loss and a heritage you just can't shake. 

He had organized a hundred escape routes before, but now when he needed only one more, there weren't any left for him.

GRADE: A-