The Last Match

I don't understand why people compare this book to other Hard Case Crime offerings. Yes, it's "different" but so are many of their other books. One of the teriffic things Hard Case has done has been to introduce me to some people I was unfamiliar with: Domenic Stansberry, Seymour Shubin, and one or two others. My absolute favorite is David Dodge. Where did this guy come from? I love his writing and how the narrative flows like water, the international flavors to the story, and even the glib but less than honest voice of the protagonist. Again, a great book by an author deserving to be discovered and cherished. All Hard Case Crime books should be this enjoyable, and most are. There's one guy who they keep publishing that isn't up to snuff (of course not Lawrence Block) and I wish they'd realize it. Other than that, for those who rate the publisher as much as their books, this one makes them shine.

Hard Case Crime aficionados should rejoice at this new offering --- an unpublished novel by David Dodge, bestselling author of IT TAKES A THIEF. Hard Case also published Dodge's lesser known but equally exciting PLUNDER OF THE SUN in 2005. THE LAST MATCH, written shortly before Dodge's death in 1974, is a bit different from his previous work and, for that matter, from most of the other Hard Case Crime entries. Nonetheless, it is an entertaining and worthwhile read. THE LAST MATCH takes its title from a con game of the same name, and the novel concerns itself with a layabout con man who seems to have an aversion to honest work. Indeed, the nameless protagonist actually works harder being a crook than he would if he was doing something legitimate. It is doubtful, however, that a public occupation would result in exploits as interesting as those contained in THE LAST MATCH. When we first encounter our protagonist, he is facing the wrong end of a firearm, being held by a jealous husband; the likable scoundrel is indeed busy, given that at the same time he is employed as the chaste gigolo of a wealthy dowager. It is during this time that he finds himself attracted to a young British noblewoman named Reggie, with resulting fireworks; think TAMING OF THE SHREW, with the issue of who the shrew is being debatable. Our man soon finds himself on the run from Reggie, the authorities and a gangster or two, as he hops from one continent to another, skimming and scamming as he goes. At times the book has the feel of a series of loosely connected short stories. But just when you think Dodge is becoming predictable, he takes a sudden left turn and everything changes. There is an ending that you really won't see coming and a surprising homage to a scam that is the ancestor to the Bank of Nigeria email drop. Technology may change, but human nature does not. THE LAST MATCH isn't quite as serious as other Hard Case Crime books, but it's an entertaining addition to the collection by an under-appreciated author who left us too early and with too little. --- Reviewed by Joe Hartlaub

Fans of author David Dodge who were thrilled to see his series character Al Colby back in print with Hard Case Crime's rerelease of Plunder of the Sun are bound to be even more excited to learn that The Last Match, a new, never before published novel and Dodge's last, has been unearthed and is finally available to the public, more than 30 years after it was written. Dodge, also the author of the novel Alfred Hitchcock used as the basis for To Catch a Thief, used pieces of his life throughout his fiction. A world traveler with his family, he alternated novels fictionalizing his trips around the world with travelogues chronicling the true events. His daughter Kendal Dodge Butler writes in the afterword to The Last Match that "I have such a well-documented childhood that at times I'm not sure whether a thing really happened or it's just something I read in a book." She also believes that Curly, this novel's hero, is simply her father "dreaming of long cons." But whatever is true and whatever may be recycled from earlier novels (but based on real people), The Last Match is a fine example of Dodge's writing. I didn't particularly enjoy the treasure-hunt aspect of Plunder of the Sun, but the writing was impeccable, and as a fan of long-con stories like The Sting and The Girl with the Long Green Heart (another Hard Case Crime reprint), Dodge's final book was right up my alley. There's not a whole lot in the way of plot; the hero, only known as "Curly" because of his hair, is basically writing a memoir of his time traveling the world pulling cons on unsuspecting marks, and sometimes getting involved with local women. His adventures take him to many exotic locales, each connected to the last merely by a necessary trip to the next country to escape the authorities of the one he pulled his last job in. He acts as chauffeur to the Honorable (and untouchable) Regina Forbes-Jones in France, and takes charge of a stunningly beautiful (and equally naive) honey-skinned women named Boda while writing suspect letters for Arabs in Tangier. He subsequently hitches a ride in the fire-room of a ship to Peru (after looking out for Boda's future welfare, of course -- he's hardly a cad) where he helps perpetuate a Spanish Prisoner scheme much like the Nigerian scam that permeates e-mail today (and illustrates how old that particular game is). And that's only the first 150 pages or so. On and on Curly goes and it is simply impossible to predict where he'll go or what he'll do next. Often I got the sense that Dodge wasn't even sure, that he was just letting the story go where it took him. This gives The Last Match an immediacy that is equally as fascinating as the story being told. Which brings me to another reason I liked The Last Match better than Plunder of the Sun: this book displays the easy flow of a writer who is very comfortable behind the typewriter. You don't attempt to chronicle a period in the life of a character in detail unless you are confident in you

I have greatly enjoyed most of the books in the Hard Case Crime series, and even my least favorites are still quite good. This one was really great. Having read Dodge's other HCC book Plunder of the Sun, this was a special treat. Plunder of the Sun was written over 20 years before this book, and although it was good, was fairly restrained as far as language and innuendo went. Not so much with this book, although generally still tame by today's standards. The story runs the gamut from humorously absurd to very serious. The character wants to try out scam after scam, often getting into trouble or barely escaping it with each attempt. And yet deep down he's a nice guy. It's a bit silly, but it actually works. The Thirteen Match game is a nice mathematical puzzle (you'll find a variant of it in Kordemsky's book The Moscow Puzzles, as I recall), ultimately employed as a scam. You get a good explanation of it in this book, and it is one of at least a couple of places that play off of the book's title. You'll also find the Spanish Prisoner (the late 1990s movie by that name is quite good also, btw, and deals a bit with the scam, but I digress) con, and if you look closely at the letter in this book (written in 1973, mind you), you'll see remarkable "similarities" to many of the phishing scams going around by e-mail and fax - this is a very old con, and Dodge breaks it down for us beautifully. The Afterword by his daughter was also enjoyable to read, shedding light on this excellent author who left our domain only a year after this book was written.

From David Dodge, the author of "To Catch a Thief" (famously filmed by Alfred Hitchcock, starring Cary Grant and Grace Kelly) comes this previously unpublished work, written just before the writer's death in 1974. "The Last Match" is the story of a con man on the French Riviera with the unlikely moniker of Curly. He didn't start out trying to be a con man; he just fell into it when it seemed easier than actually working for a living. Curly gets involved with some rough characters, conning French noblemen and smuggling cigarettes from Morocco, and finds himself throw in the hoosegow a time or two. All the while, he keeps his raffish charm and determined outlook. Somewhat surprisingly, "The Last Match" also takes a romantic and sentimental turn, with Curly getting caught up in the affairs of British heiress Regina Forbes-Jones. She despises Curly and is determined to ruin his life -- or so he believes -- but he can't help falling for her anyway. The book is probably a little longer than it needs to be, and Curly pulls a few more cons than are strictly necessary, but overall it is an entertaining and fun read. This isn't the best we've seen from Hard Case Crime, but "The Last Match" is still a worthy find.