Tonight+I+Said+Good-Bye

 = Back to the beginning = “Tonight I said goodbye” by Michael Korita

 An interesting mixture of old and new is found in this thriller by Michael Korita. A well constructed plot that reminds us of Raymond Chandler and Dashiel Hammett stories is set in a present times. Lincoln Perry, a tough former member of Cleveland´s police force, runs from Cleveland to Florida and back to Cleveland solving a difficult case. Russian mafia, a dishonest millionaire, a clever and reliable associate, a nice honest journalist, a touch of corruption in the police force and, of course, a dangerous and attractive woman who knows how to use a gun.

To mix up all these ingredients there are quite a lot of corpses and a little girl that adds the sensitive touch. Like in every good detective novel, the good side and the bad side are quite distinguishable at the beginning of the story. As the reader gets involved in the story, both sides start to mix up, ending in a big grey area where you find that Russian Mafia people are not that bad, millionaires only seek to have a little bit more money and private detectives main interest is to have their work paid. Of course, it is well known that extremely attractive young women usually are dangerous or expensive or cause problems or all together. So, in the end, everything is not what it should be. Only friendship and some sort of basic justice prevail at the end of the story.

This was the first novel that Michael Korita published and you can see in it all the reasons of his later success. His previous experience as a private detective and journalist are noticeable in the novel, bringing about an air of reality that impregnates the whole story.

Manuel Páramo, February 2011