The Last Tomorrow by Barry Fantoni

​  Meet Detective Lipkin, the oldest Private Detective in Miami. A retired police officer and a war veteran, the man doesn’t use computers or mobile phones, just good old fashioned detective work, a typewriter and some baked goods powered determination.
    Lipkin gets hired by a local theatre producer to find his partner who has mysteriously absconded with all their money. It’s a seemingly straight forward deal, but it gets all tangled up as these things are wont to do and suddenly popular to the extent that suddenly the 87 year old detective finds himself with lots of clients and lots of cases all orbiting the same main one.
    Ok, to be fair, I really enjoy stories with elder protagonists, so that was the initial appeal, but Mr. Lipkin would have won me over either way, that old charmer. Just as this book had. It’s pure noir in narration, albeit the sun soaked glitzy Miami style. The writing is really enjoyable, it’s humorous,  engaging and features great character writing and development for both Lipkin and the myriad of side players around him, from Eastern European oligarchs to his own curtain twitching tedious neighbors to a young girl whom he helps just because he’s that kind of a guy, a proper mensch.
     Which is all to say, I really, really liked this book. It was the most pleasant of surprises for a random kindle freebie, something on normally shouldn’t expect too much out of.  Though normally I’m not a fan of series as a format, had Detective Lipkin’s adventures been serialized, I’d probably read more. Alas, no. Seems that was his one and only fictional outing. Oh well, at least it was a good one. Recommended.