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The Last Match
When a handsome swindler working the French Riviera meets a beautiful heiress on the beach at Cannes, sparks fly. But so do bullets – and soon he’s forced to flee the country with both the police and the heiress on his trail.
From the casinos of Monaco to the jungles of Brazil, from Tangier to Marrakech to Peru, the chase is on. And not even a veteran of Monte Carlo’s baccarat tables would dare to place odds on where it will end…
From the casinos of Monaco to the jungles of Brazil, from Tangier to Marrakech to Peru, the chase is on. And not even a veteran of Monte Carlo’s baccarat tables would dare to place odds on where it will end…
319 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published October 3, 2006
15 people are currently reading
303 people want to read
About the author
David Dodge
89 books28 followersDavid Francis Dodge (August 18, 1910 – August 1974) was an author of mystery/thriller novels and humorous travel books. His first book was published in 1941. His fiction is characterized by tight plotting, brisk dialogue, memorable and well-defined characters, and (often) exotic locations. His travel writing documented the (mis)adventures of the Dodge family (David, his wife Elva, and daughter Kendal) as they roamed around the world. Practical advice and information for the traveler on a budget are sprinkled liberally throughout the books.
David Dodge was born in Berkeley, California, the youngest child of George Andrew Dodge, a San Francisco architect, and Maude Ellingwood Bennett Dodge. Following George's death in an automobile accident, Maude "Monnie" Dodge moved the family (David and his three older sisters, Kathryn, Frances, and Marian) to Southern California, where David attended Lincoln High School in Los Angeles but did not graduate.
After leaving school, he worked as a bank messenger, a marine fireman, a stevedore, and a night watchman. In 1934, he went to work for the San Francisco accounting firm of McLaren, Goode & Company, becoming a Certified Public Accountant in 1937. On July 17, 1936, he was married to Elva Keith, a former Macmillan Company editorial representative, and their only daughter, Kendal, was born in 1940. After the attack on Pearl Harbor he joined the U.S. Naval Reserve, emerging three years later with the rank of Lieutenant Commander.
David Dodge's first experience as a writer came through his involvement with the Macondray Lane Players, a group of amateur playwrights, producers, and actors whose goal was to create a theater purely for pleasure. The group was founded by George Henry Burkhardt (Dodge's brother-in-law) and performed exclusively at Macondria, a little theater located in the basement of Burkhardt's house at 56 Macondray Lane on San Francisco's Russian Hill. His publishing career began in 1936 when he won First Prize in the Northern California Drama Association's Third Annual One Act Play Tournament. The prize-winning play, "A Certain Man Had Two Sons," was subsequently published by the Banner Play Bureau, of San Francisco. Another Dodge play, "Christmas Eve at the Mermaid," co-written by Loyall McLaren (his boss at McLaren, Goode & Co.), was performed as the Bohemian Club's Christmas play of 1940, and again in 1959. In 1961, the Grabhorn Press published the play in a volume entitled Shakespeare in Bohemia.
His career as a writer really began, however, when he made a bet with his wife that he could write a better mystery novel than the ones they were reading during a rainy family vacation. He drew on his professional experience as a CPA and wrote his first novel, Death and Taxes, featuring San Francisco tax expert and reluctant detective James "Whit" Whitney. It was published by Macmillan in 1941 and he won five dollars from Elva. Three more Whitney novels soon followed: Shear the Black Sheep (Macmillan, 1942), Bullets for the Bridegroom (Macmillan, 1944) and It Ain't Hay (Simon & Schuster, 1946), in which Whit tangles with marijuana smugglers. With its subject matter and extremely evocative cover art on both the first edition dust jacket and the paperback reprint, this book remains one of Dodge's most collectible titles.
Upon his release from active duty by the Navy in 1945, Dodge left San Francisco and set out for Guatemala by car with his wife and daughter, beginning his second career as a travel writer. The Dodge family's misadventures on the road through Mexico are hilariously documented in How Green Was My Father (Simon & Schuster, 1947). His Latin American experiences also produced a second series character, expatriate private investigator and tough-guy adventurer Al Colby, who first appears in The Long Escape (Random House, 1948).
Two more well-received Colby books appeared in 1949 and 1950, but with the publication of To Catch a Thief in 1952, Dodge abandoned series ch
David Dodge was born in Berkeley, California, the youngest child of George Andrew Dodge, a San Francisco architect, and Maude Ellingwood Bennett Dodge. Following George's death in an automobile accident, Maude "Monnie" Dodge moved the family (David and his three older sisters, Kathryn, Frances, and Marian) to Southern California, where David attended Lincoln High School in Los Angeles but did not graduate.
After leaving school, he worked as a bank messenger, a marine fireman, a stevedore, and a night watchman. In 1934, he went to work for the San Francisco accounting firm of McLaren, Goode & Company, becoming a Certified Public Accountant in 1937. On July 17, 1936, he was married to Elva Keith, a former Macmillan Company editorial representative, and their only daughter, Kendal, was born in 1940. After the attack on Pearl Harbor he joined the U.S. Naval Reserve, emerging three years later with the rank of Lieutenant Commander.
David Dodge's first experience as a writer came through his involvement with the Macondray Lane Players, a group of amateur playwrights, producers, and actors whose goal was to create a theater purely for pleasure. The group was founded by George Henry Burkhardt (Dodge's brother-in-law) and performed exclusively at Macondria, a little theater located in the basement of Burkhardt's house at 56 Macondray Lane on San Francisco's Russian Hill. His publishing career began in 1936 when he won First Prize in the Northern California Drama Association's Third Annual One Act Play Tournament. The prize-winning play, "A Certain Man Had Two Sons," was subsequently published by the Banner Play Bureau, of San Francisco. Another Dodge play, "Christmas Eve at the Mermaid," co-written by Loyall McLaren (his boss at McLaren, Goode & Co.), was performed as the Bohemian Club's Christmas play of 1940, and again in 1959. In 1961, the Grabhorn Press published the play in a volume entitled Shakespeare in Bohemia.
His career as a writer really began, however, when he made a bet with his wife that he could write a better mystery novel than the ones they were reading during a rainy family vacation. He drew on his professional experience as a CPA and wrote his first novel, Death and Taxes, featuring San Francisco tax expert and reluctant detective James "Whit" Whitney. It was published by Macmillan in 1941 and he won five dollars from Elva. Three more Whitney novels soon followed: Shear the Black Sheep (Macmillan, 1942), Bullets for the Bridegroom (Macmillan, 1944) and It Ain't Hay (Simon & Schuster, 1946), in which Whit tangles with marijuana smugglers. With its subject matter and extremely evocative cover art on both the first edition dust jacket and the paperback reprint, this book remains one of Dodge's most collectible titles.
Upon his release from active duty by the Navy in 1945, Dodge left San Francisco and set out for Guatemala by car with his wife and daughter, beginning his second career as a travel writer. The Dodge family's misadventures on the road through Mexico are hilariously documented in How Green Was My Father (Simon & Schuster, 1947). His Latin American experiences also produced a second series character, expatriate private investigator and tough-guy adventurer Al Colby, who first appears in The Long Escape (Random House, 1948).
Two more well-received Colby books appeared in 1949 and 1950, but with the publication of To Catch a Thief in 1952, Dodge abandoned series ch
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 33 reviews
November 7, 2011
An American con man named Curly gets involved with a beautiful English heiress on a French beach. Soon he gets into trouble and flees all over the world to escape it. But can he ever escape her?
Sometimes the Hard Case crime series coughs up a book that makes me want to seek out and devour every book by the author. This is not one of those books.
The Last Match is a meandering mess of a novel. While I enjoyed the first person narration by Curly, the plot was almost non-existent. Curly cons his way around the world and is constantly on the run, going to such exotic locales as Marrakesh and Peru. He has stints working at a casino, on a ship, and spends a bit of time in the clink. While the experiences were interesting, it felt like a connected series of short stories rather than a novel. The female characters are definitely a product of the times, from Bodda as a mindless sex object to Reggie as a ball-breaking virgin. There isn't a non-stereotype female character in the book.
Like I said earlier, the writing is the best part and kept me from giving up around forty pages in. While I'm thinking about picking up David Dodge's To Catch a Thief, it's not high on my list of priorities.
Sometimes the Hard Case crime series coughs up a book that makes me want to seek out and devour every book by the author. This is not one of those books.
The Last Match is a meandering mess of a novel. While I enjoyed the first person narration by Curly, the plot was almost non-existent. Curly cons his way around the world and is constantly on the run, going to such exotic locales as Marrakesh and Peru. He has stints working at a casino, on a ship, and spends a bit of time in the clink. While the experiences were interesting, it felt like a connected series of short stories rather than a novel. The female characters are definitely a product of the times, from Bodda as a mindless sex object to Reggie as a ball-breaking virgin. There isn't a non-stereotype female character in the book.
Like I said earlier, the writing is the best part and kept me from giving up around forty pages in. While I'm thinking about picking up David Dodge's To Catch a Thief, it's not high on my list of priorities.
September 26, 2021
Published some 32 years after David Dodge's death, The Last Match was written some time in the early 1970s, and, as Kendal Dodge, David Dodge's daughter, makes clear in the Afterward is a pastiche of many characters and acquaintances Dodge came to know over his entire lifetime. The book itself is episodic. In fact it's a picaresque and its hero a picaro. It starts on the French Riviera and concludes there. In between, its anonymous protagonist, introduced only by his nickname, "Curly," goes to Tangier, Marrakesh, across the United States, Peru (en route working on a cargo ship), and down the Amazonian basin. Curly is a con man and perhaps the most coarse character Dodge ever invented. He meets his match in a British aristocrat, who follows him across the world and takes him back to the Riviera.
The best insight to the novel, however, is to be found in Kendal Dodge's Afterward. She wrote it in 2006 and herself died a year later. Much insight into Dodge's work was lost with her. And Dodge himself had been largely forgotten until the reissuing of many of his works in the mid 2000s. For those interested in finding more out about him, I discovered an especially valuable website, A David Dodge Companion, https://www.david-dodge.com/, complete with bibliographies, articles, and biographies of David and Kendal Dodge.
The best insight to the novel, however, is to be found in Kendal Dodge's Afterward. She wrote it in 2006 and herself died a year later. Much insight into Dodge's work was lost with her. And Dodge himself had been largely forgotten until the reissuing of many of his works in the mid 2000s. For those interested in finding more out about him, I discovered an especially valuable website, A David Dodge Companion, https://www.david-dodge.com/, complete with bibliographies, articles, and biographies of David and Kendal Dodge.
June 26, 2017
The Last Match is a tale about an American con-man, grifter, bunco artist, flim-flam man and details some years of his life. Unlike many con-man stories, this one does not focus on a single event or a single con. Rather, it focuses on the individual and how he drifts from one con to another and has difficulty adjusting to any kind of honest labor unless it also involves some form of a confidence game. The story opens up on the French Riviera where this grifter has latched onto an older woman who supports him while he squires her around and a wealthy British noblewoman who looks down upon his activities and calls him a "spiv." His various con-games and relationships in Tangiers and other North African ports are discussed as is his strange relationship with a woman who is trusting and innocent beyond imagination.
All in all, I found this book to be quite entertaining. It is written in an easy-to-read style. It details various events and adventures in the main character's life and is a worthwhile read. Dodge faithfully captures the spirit of the Riviera and Morocco in the fifties. I would say it is an unusual book for Hard Case Crime, but the publisher has put out a number of books that don't appear at first blush to fit within the hardboiled framework.
All in all, I found this book to be quite entertaining. It is written in an easy-to-read style. It details various events and adventures in the main character's life and is a worthwhile read. Dodge faithfully captures the spirit of the Riviera and Morocco in the fifties. I would say it is an unusual book for Hard Case Crime, but the publisher has put out a number of books that don't appear at first blush to fit within the hardboiled framework.
May 11, 2008
The Last Match manages to be both entertaining and tedious. The novel is narrated by Curly, a bunco artist whose exploits we follow around the globe. Curly's narrative is episodic to a fault--one unrelated story is piled on top of another, and while the individual stories can be fun to read, it soon becomes clear that the novel is not going anywhere interesting, inasmuch as it going anywhere at all. In the end, I found this book a real chore to finish.
Footnote of no real importance: In the pulp tradition, Hard Case Crime books are not particularly well proofread, and The Last Match contains my favorite typo that I have seen: On page 191, around is spelled arou.nd. That's right. There's a period stuck randomly in the middle of the word.
Footnote of no real importance: In the pulp tradition, Hard Case Crime books are not particularly well proofread, and The Last Match contains my favorite typo that I have seen: On page 191, around is spelled arou.nd. That's right. There's a period stuck randomly in the middle of the word.
April 26, 2022
Yes, I gave this book five stars. Why? Because it’s exactly the kind of book which hits the right notes for me. A con-artist story by the writer of “To Catch a Thief” (it was a book before Cary Grant and Alfred Hitchcock), this story is globetrotting, sexy, and sarcastic. Witty in the best ways, it’s about a young grifter pursued by his nemesis, a woman who think he’s wasting his potential.
It’s not the tightest of stories, but the detours in the plot are enjoyable. In sum, it’s funny, occasionally serious and a great read by the beach.
It’s not the tightest of stories, but the detours in the plot are enjoyable. In sum, it’s funny, occasionally serious and a great read by the beach.
September 4, 2011
For the record, I discovered the manuscript of this novel among David Dodge's papers. It had remained unpublished at his death in 1974. Hard Case Crime liked it enough to publish it in 2006. No, it's not Dodge's best work. It is a clear attempt to recapture some of the magic of "To Catch a Thief," with a similar setting (the south of France and other exotic locales) and similar characters. Many of the elements in this novel had appeared in Dodge's earlier fiction and non-fiction. But, even recycled Dodge is better than a lot of other writers. Consider this opening to the novel:
"The guy who was waiting for me in my room merely wanted to blow my head off, that's all. To teach me a lesson, as it turned out. He used a little short-barreled revolver, a thirty-two I think it was, but he didn't know how to hold it to keep the barrel from flipping up every time he pulled the trigger. The kick of the shots lifted the bullets over my head or over my shoulder or somewhere else that wasn't into me. He got off three of them before I could do anything about it."
Not bad. Not bad at all, Mr. Dodge.
"The guy who was waiting for me in my room merely wanted to blow my head off, that's all. To teach me a lesson, as it turned out. He used a little short-barreled revolver, a thirty-two I think it was, but he didn't know how to hold it to keep the barrel from flipping up every time he pulled the trigger. The kick of the shots lifted the bullets over my head or over my shoulder or somewhere else that wasn't into me. He got off three of them before I could do anything about it."
Not bad. Not bad at all, Mr. Dodge.
February 24, 2019
This novel follows a small-time con man known only by his nickname Curly over the course of five years:
A gigolo in Cannes…
A cigarette smuggler on the coastal route between Tangier and Marseilles…
Posing as a spy to broker a bogus arms deal…
Running mail order scams in Morocco and Peru…
A merchant marine on the Pacific…
Helping a murderess escape on the Amazon…
Running a quasi-legal front for a casino empire mogul needing to buy real estate on the cheap…
David Dodge clearly has a knack for writing impulsive, ne’er-do-well characters who live by a sort of thieves’ code of honor. His style can effortlessly veer from noir to satire. Each episode is entertaining in its own unique way.
However, unlike his superior novel Plunder of the Sun, this book suffers from an aimless plot. Curly’s fortunes and reversals of fortune stretch on to the point they cease to matter much. His eventual character transformation in the last chapter rings false.
This is a barely above average Hard Case Crime entry: 2.5 stars
A gigolo in Cannes…
A cigarette smuggler on the coastal route between Tangier and Marseilles…
Posing as a spy to broker a bogus arms deal…
Running mail order scams in Morocco and Peru…
A merchant marine on the Pacific…
Helping a murderess escape on the Amazon…
Running a quasi-legal front for a casino empire mogul needing to buy real estate on the cheap…
David Dodge clearly has a knack for writing impulsive, ne’er-do-well characters who live by a sort of thieves’ code of honor. His style can effortlessly veer from noir to satire. Each episode is entertaining in its own unique way.
However, unlike his superior novel Plunder of the Sun, this book suffers from an aimless plot. Curly’s fortunes and reversals of fortune stretch on to the point they cease to matter much. His eventual character transformation in the last chapter rings false.
This is a barely above average Hard Case Crime entry: 2.5 stars
April 7, 2016
This is a curious book by a writer I never heard of; a little Wikipedia research tells me he wrote To Catch a Thief, one of many famous movies from obscure books. David Dodge apparently loved to travel, and it shows in this book, which careens wildly from the south of France to Morocco and back, and then as far as Peru and Brazil, all in the service of a highly unlikely plot involving a congenial American con man and his on again-off again romance with a chilly English heiress.
It's really a big mess, but I kept turning pages. I don't know why I liked it so much, but I did: the misadventures are entertaining, the inside dope on casinos, swindles, rackets, Brazilian prisons, etc. is good stuff, and the characters are engaging if implausible. It's all very light-hearted until a brutal crime slaps us in the face near the end. Then it gets serious for a while, but... Well, no spoilers. It's mostly a romp, an old-fashioned picaresque tale that would have made a great flick.
It's really a big mess, but I kept turning pages. I don't know why I liked it so much, but I did: the misadventures are entertaining, the inside dope on casinos, swindles, rackets, Brazilian prisons, etc. is good stuff, and the characters are engaging if implausible. It's all very light-hearted until a brutal crime slaps us in the face near the end. Then it gets serious for a while, but... Well, no spoilers. It's mostly a romp, an old-fashioned picaresque tale that would have made a great flick.
September 7, 2016
A small time con man travels the world staying one step ahead of the law and the lady that wants to change his ways.
This is one of those great examples of stories written in the seventies. It isn't so much a story with a beginning, middle, and end. It is more a series of (mis)adventures of a young man as he travels around the world. He thinks of himself as a true criminal but he comes across more as a small time con men than anything else. Even those small time cons get him into trouble more often than they work. Especially after a young socilaite sets her mind on setting him on the straight and narrow.
It is set in the fifties so it might seem a little sexist to some but I always enjoy seeing how things have changed and don't expect them to read as the story was occuring in the present day. I would rate this one as 3.5 stars.
This is one of those great examples of stories written in the seventies. It isn't so much a story with a beginning, middle, and end. It is more a series of (mis)adventures of a young man as he travels around the world. He thinks of himself as a true criminal but he comes across more as a small time con men than anything else. Even those small time cons get him into trouble more often than they work. Especially after a young socilaite sets her mind on setting him on the straight and narrow.
It is set in the fifties so it might seem a little sexist to some but I always enjoy seeing how things have changed and don't expect them to read as the story was occuring in the present day. I would rate this one as 3.5 stars.
September 1, 2010
Although it is more a collection of short stories than a single flowing narrative, it is still an enjoyable and entertaining read.
November 30, 2017
This book had a lot of problems. The woman characters were extremely unrealistic and chauvinist, the love interest's attraction to the main character was extremely unbelievable, and the main character was unlikable. There are a million reasons to bash this book. So why am I giving it four stars? because in spite of all its flaws, I loved it. It kept me turning pages, no matter how unlikely the plot turned out to be. I was fascinated by the story, and I loved every minute of reading it. The only thing I didn't really like was the ending.
January 10, 2021
Dodge’s last novel, written in the early 1970s unpublished until 2006 and set in the 1950s, is a real period piece about a conman living, usually successfully, by his wits mainly on the French Riviera with a significant episode in the jungles of Brazil. The cons themselves are interesting, as is the duplicity of many of his colleagues, but it’s his attitudes towards women which really dates this book as spells in jail, the making and losing of fortunes and the lifestyle of the 1950s make for an entertaining enough read
May 30, 2018
This one isn't bad, although I do have a couple
of complaints. One, he uses quite a few french
terms and does not always explain what they
mean, instead relying on context to assist the
reader. Two, while it is a first person narration
the protagonist is a bit windy with his story
telling.
There is not much of a plot but just a loose
story telling and several vignettes. Entertaining
perhaps but not really "hard case crime"
caliber.
of complaints. One, he uses quite a few french
terms and does not always explain what they
mean, instead relying on context to assist the
reader. Two, while it is a first person narration
the protagonist is a bit windy with his story
telling.
There is not much of a plot but just a loose
story telling and several vignettes. Entertaining
perhaps but not really "hard case crime"
caliber.
April 21, 2023
Strange that the narrator of this story doesn’t speak French, but the narrative of the story is overwhelmingly filled with French words! Umm, how does that work? Would he understand what he wrote? I know that I sure didn’t…
This book is kind of a hot mess. Too many irons in too many fires to form one cohesive plot line. He’s a con man, then gigolo, cigarette smuggler, grifter, parolee, chauffeur, etc. With all of that, and all of the French vocabulary, I found little enjoyment in the story itself. A rare miss in the Hard Case series.
This book is kind of a hot mess. Too many irons in too many fires to form one cohesive plot line. He’s a con man, then gigolo, cigarette smuggler, grifter, parolee, chauffeur, etc. With all of that, and all of the French vocabulary, I found little enjoyment in the story itself. A rare miss in the Hard Case series.
February 14, 2023
4+ stars as his new ladylove insists conman Curly must stop scamming rich older women at resorts
December 22, 2023
2/10 - Merde alors!
March 1, 2024
Picaresque little yarn from a time long ago. It lingers..
February 11, 2025
I gave up at page 117. It just wasn't going anywhere interesting.
October 27, 2025
Don’t waste your time reading it!
August 24, 2025
Just a gigilo, everywhere I go.
September 13, 2012
The Last Match is the best plotless novel I have read, bar a couple of really post-modern works I can't remember right now.
The story follows an American grifter (con man) from the South of France to Morocco to the US and South America and eventually back to France. On the way, he encounters beautiful women (some of whom he beds), gangsters, murderers, missionaries, Nazis, criminals (he does time in an Amazonian prison gulag) and more often than not himself. Despite the lack of defined story line - what there is seems to follow David Dodge's own travels, I really enjoyed The Last Match and always wanted to find out what was around the next corner. It's also refreshing to identify with an amoral protagonist - a softer Jim Thompson type grifter, a kinder Tom Ripley, basically.
The Last Match is also a kind of nostalgic text, written at a time long before fb, mobile phones and biometric passports. The sport between cops and robbers seemed fairer then and it was easier perhaps to be a global drifter - though I do know people who do pretty well at it in the 21st century as well. Our man jumps ship and country without papers, something that's hard to imagine nowadays. And despite the fact that he spends a fair amount of time in the slammer, a reek of freedom altogether unfamiliar today comes off every page.
By the end of the book, we have learned that crime pays as much as any occupation, with highs and lows and in-betweens and that it's perfectly fine to fleece rich people. Our man is not cruel and he sees swindling as a career and comes across as far more honest than a lot of people with regular jobs. In many ways a book about the real world then.
Dodge also wrote To Catch A Thief, famously filmed by Hitchcock with Cary Grant in the lead role, but I never pictured grant in this story. A young Dennis Hopper or Johnny Depp might have done the role justice. Not a masterpiece but a great romp and while the ending is sentimental, it is in tune with the leading characters rather kind way of helping others part with their cash.
The story follows an American grifter (con man) from the South of France to Morocco to the US and South America and eventually back to France. On the way, he encounters beautiful women (some of whom he beds), gangsters, murderers, missionaries, Nazis, criminals (he does time in an Amazonian prison gulag) and more often than not himself. Despite the lack of defined story line - what there is seems to follow David Dodge's own travels, I really enjoyed The Last Match and always wanted to find out what was around the next corner. It's also refreshing to identify with an amoral protagonist - a softer Jim Thompson type grifter, a kinder Tom Ripley, basically.
The Last Match is also a kind of nostalgic text, written at a time long before fb, mobile phones and biometric passports. The sport between cops and robbers seemed fairer then and it was easier perhaps to be a global drifter - though I do know people who do pretty well at it in the 21st century as well. Our man jumps ship and country without papers, something that's hard to imagine nowadays. And despite the fact that he spends a fair amount of time in the slammer, a reek of freedom altogether unfamiliar today comes off every page.
By the end of the book, we have learned that crime pays as much as any occupation, with highs and lows and in-betweens and that it's perfectly fine to fleece rich people. Our man is not cruel and he sees swindling as a career and comes across as far more honest than a lot of people with regular jobs. In many ways a book about the real world then.
Dodge also wrote To Catch A Thief, famously filmed by Hitchcock with Cary Grant in the lead role, but I never pictured grant in this story. A young Dennis Hopper or Johnny Depp might have done the role justice. Not a masterpiece but a great romp and while the ending is sentimental, it is in tune with the leading characters rather kind way of helping others part with their cash.
November 24, 2011
It seems fitting that the afterward, here written by the author's daughter, mentions that when he was not writing crime novels, he was writing travel books. This novel is essentially a long, winding travel book by a fictitious con artist who makes his way all over the world in his restless desire to cheat people with his superior intelligence. It's fun, it has a couple of interesting turns, but also has some long sow sections it could have done without.
December 16, 2011
In terms of wit, appealing characters, and exotic locations, this novel contains the very best of David Dodge. What makes this book so fascinating is that you never know quite where the story is going. I do think the protagonist, Curly, is Dodge’s best character and the scenes between him and Regina are extremely fun. The character Boda is too one-dimensional and the ending might have been better, but this is a very well written novel with much to admire.
August 9, 2012
The book was just “ok”. I continued reading to find when the "this is what happened in the past" section to end and for the "real" story to begin. Plot seems more like disjointed short stories barely connected, and most of the story is told in a somewhat annoying, tension draining, "this is what happened, as I recall now many years after the fact" (though the years, or days, or hours of the "past action" was not actually clear during the story, only at the end).
August 16, 2007
It makes me wonder why I've never done anything "interesting." Have I done time in a French jail? nope. Have I ever gotten a job at 45 minutes notice running a boiler on a cargo ship? nope. Have I ever been shot at while smuggling cigarettes across the Mediterranean? nope. Well, what have I been doing?
Sure the story is absurd in most aspects, but the details are fantastic!
Sure the story is absurd in most aspects, but the details are fantastic!
September 18, 2007
If you like books like Frank Abagnale's Catch Me If You Can and/or you've read Dodge's Plunder of the Sun, then you'll like this one. The Last Match is the story of a gigolo/bunco artist/smuggler and his adventures from France to the U.S. to Peru and Brazil. Interesting and well worth reading.
July 14, 2009
Such a fun summer read. It's by the guy who wrote "To Catch a Thief" and has all that 1960's elan. Our con man hero hops from one sun-soaked global hot spot to the next and is the next best thing to going somewhere fabulous yourself.
November 6, 2011
An easy to read book, and the protagonist Curly, lives an interesting life, but the plot makes little sense. This was the least intersting of the Hard Case Crime series I have read. Still, I want to try It Takes a Thief by the same author as that is supposed to be a better book.
January 18, 2012
The memoir of a grifting conman in the late 50s in the Mediterranean and South America. Basically a collection of stories and memories of the author set to a nameless narrator and given a sheen of crime. Not great. Not bad. Rated PG for some violence and adult themes. 2.5/5
January 5, 2017
Quite a nice slice of life of a globe-trotting grifter. The Brazilian prison workcamp scenes are particularly memorable. Some bizarre depictions of female characters as acknowledged in the afterword by the author's daughter.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 33 reviews