THE LAST EMBRACE

By Denise Hamilton

Beverly led our discussion of Denise Hamilton's late nineteen-forties thriller THE LAST EMBRACE based on actual events in Hollywood during the final days of the film studio system for actors. Beverly had listened and talked with Ms. Hamilton shortly after the release of the book and related to us many interesting facts about how the author had chosen to write this story and the many true, and nearly true, events that are woven into it. There is no question that our local LA Times journalist turned novelist has written a well-researched and entertaining read about a missing and murdered actress (based the true and un-solved Spangler murder) during the days of gang lord Mickey Cohen, movie moguls, and the beginnings of the celluloid magic of special effects.

While everyone in the group who had read the book agreed that the trip down memory lane in the southern California environs was great fun there were varying degrees of enthusiasm about the plot line and character development of story's protagonist. This differences showed up when we voted our 'stars' for this month.

As individuals there are several of us who have been following Ms. Hamilton's 'Eve Diamond' fictionalized series about a journalist in the Los Angeles area and as a group, since we were honored with Ms. Hamilton's presence for our review of her SILVER SKULL entry in this series. We could all agree that each book she writes seems to bring Denise Hamilton more skill and expertise with the novel as a medium. Despite some criticisms from our meeting this continues to be the case with THE LAST EMBRACE.

Our criticisms for this book were two-fold. The first concern was for plot points. As a reader, you want to be involved and follow how the plot unfolds by hitting certain plot points during the course of the read. While the action moves along nicely the plot is moving somewhat unevenly, leading off into this red herring and another. It is not until chapter 24, when a major reveal takes place, for no apparent reason it seems, then to bring the reader up to date, that we are now back in synch with the author. Our second concern was for the primary character, Lilly Kessler. We all felt, to different degrees, that Lilly gets hijacked a bit to serve the descriptive environment. We wanted her to better show off her OSS skills and to show a more rounded character. We felt that she could have been a stronger female character rather than leaving that all to Detective Sam Pico. Perhaps she needed a little darker side to bring us into a real noir environment. I found myself hoping that Lilly would be a stronger, more skilled character who could continue on in the entrancing world that Ms. Hamilton has created.

In conclusion, we all agreed that we loved the journey and planned read her again.