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There is no doubt that the terrorist attacks on the Twin Towers cast a pall on the collective American conscience. The length and breadth of this is very evident in American fiction, particularly suspense fiction. In SMALL TOWN Lawrence Block made the attacks a catalyst for the events that took place in the novel. In THE LAST GOOD DAY Peter Blauner uses the attacks more indirectly --- as a backdrop, as a hint that all is not well --- but ultimately just as effectively as Block. The result is a novel that is a compelling page-turner.
THE LAST GOOD DAY is set in Riverside, New York, a bedroom community of New York City that has been undergoing a gradual gentrification and is now quietly reeling from the double body blows of the economic effects of dot-com recession and, two weeks before the events of THE LAST GOOD DAY, the terrorist attacks. Lynn and Barry Schulman have been hop-scotching back and forth across the country and have returned to Riverside, Lynn's hometown, with Barry employed as corporate counsel for a fledgling pharmaceutical company and Lynn pursing her career as a photographer. They experience all the common worries of a professional couple. Barry's company is experiencing a series of potentially damaging setbacks, while Lynn feels the tug between motherhood and her career. Their 17-year-old daughter, Hannah, is embracing the Goth lifestyle with a hey-dude boyfriend, while their 13-year-old son, Clay, seems to lack focus and direction for anything other than video games.
However, their lives are kicked into overdrive when a headless corpse surfaces upon the Hudson River in full view of a group of morning commuters --- a group that includes Barry. The body is that of one Sandi Lanier, Lynn's oldest friend. Michael Fallon, one of the police officers investigating the murder, has a complicated history with Lynn, going back to their high school days, and he makes it more than clear that, where there was once a flame, there is still a flicker. But Fallon has a connection to the dead woman as well, one that he would prefer no one knew about. Fallon's impulses, and his apparent inability to control them, hinder the investigation into Lanier's murder and complicate the downward spiral his life has already taken. As the extent of Fallon's involvement with Lanier is slowly revealed, and his continuing attraction to Lynn crosses the line of professional decorum, THE LAST GOOD DAY races toward an inevitable apocalyptic ending, terrible and inevitable.
Blauner gets better and better with each novel. THE LAST GOOD DAY is a riveting and compelling page-turner --- there is no denying it. But it is more than that. It is a subtle psychological portrait of how large-scale tragedies can indirectly affect and influence the minutiae, the ebb and flow, of living. With THE LAST GOOD DAY, Blauner assumes a rightful place on the list of authors whose work should not be missed.
--- Reviewed by Joe Hartlaub
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