Last Enemy

by Berton Roueché

The 1955 copyright makes you wonder why this was withheld until now--it falls only slightly short of Roueche's customary perfectionism. Rex Corn, an itinerant criminal, kills the servant girl in the house of the wealthy Sessions; son Leland Sessions had also used her as a sexual convenience and seems the only suspect around after Corn disappears. Most of the story follows Leland as he makes half. hearted inquiries, cowers behind furtive anonymity, and then overwhelmed by the fear that is nowhere/everywhere, disintegrates like kapok when face to face with his last and worst enemy. Not as original as Feral (1974), but unsettling enough to keep you looking over your shoulder while quickly turning the next page. -From Kirkus Reviews

Paperback

First published September 1, 1975

About the author

Berton Roueché was a medical writer who wrote for The New Yorker magazine for almost fifty years. He also wrote twenty books, including Eleven Blue Men (1954), The Incurable Wound (1958), Feral (1974), and The Medical Detectives (1980). An article he wrote for The New Yorker was made into the 1956 film Bigger Than Life, and many of the medical mysteries on the television show House were inspired by Roueché's writings.

Reviews

[Paul Barnes · Rating 4 out of 5]

[Victor Gollancz Ltd] (1956). HB/DJ. 1/1. Publisher’s Archive Copy. 240 Pages. Purchased from Any Amount of Books.

A jumble of vividly drawn, strange misfits who stumble through life and death.

I wish that Rex Corn had featured more; he’s a most intriguing villain.

The ending was abrupt and slightly disappointing.

The typically sparse Gollancz wrapper briefly quotes from eight reviews. Oddly enough, the first five contain the word “fascinating” - three being confined to it with a ‘more verbose’ entry prefixing “entirely”.