Unlike so many online "reviews" by readers, none of the following were paid for, nor were any of them posted by friends. All of the following are from people I've never met. As with the candor at the left, note that many of the following reviews comment on the complexity of The Last Days of Las Vegas.
If you're looking for a quick and easy shoot-em-up, this is not the novel for you. Average rating of 4. Walsh Lexington, MA - I loved this book. I was a big fan, in the 70s, of Hungarian Game , which seemed like a truly American voice to match - and better - Deighton and Le Carre, and, for that matter, the Adam Hall guy, whatever his name eventualy settled on.
Well, turned out better than I could have hoped. This is not the Remly of thirty years ago; this Remly is smarter, listens better, is not quite so flip. He also is middle aged.
The story has all the requisite features - plenty of suspense, imminent disaster of the most horrible type, geographical shifts, and so on. But it is the characters, and their relationship to the passage of time, that is the engrossing center of the novel's worth. Hayes is just really, really smart in the way he describes a person's relation to the lifespan, the way age colors perception, the way physical changes are a background noise to the other things in life.
I don't know of another book that has the subtlety of this one about what it is like to be a boomer getting on. I could go on. Do read it, really. It is a compelling story, a clear portrait of early 21st century America, and all. But the best part is Remly, himself, grown up. Tops on my list are the characters. I especially enjoyed Morris Berman and his interplay with Remly, and Alan Singleton was a refreshingly different character. The dialog was also outstanding.
