Wed 27 Aug 2025
Archived PI Mystery Review: HENRY KANE – Death Is the Last Lover.
Posted by Steve under Reviews[3] Comments
HENRY KANE – Death Is the Last Lover. Peter Chambers #10. Avon T-291; paperback original; 1st printing, 1959. Signet D2851, paperback, 1966.
Until the end of his career, PI Peter Chambers was very much a traditional sort of one. In this case he helps a wealthy playboy out of a spot he has created for himself, keeping a secret hideaway under an assumed name and frequenting a dance club named Nirvana.
Chambers also meets a lovely vision called Sophia Sierra, but even while going ga-ga over her, his mind stays on the case. The rhythm of Kane’s writing often hammers and sings like poetry, and I think his reputation should be higher than it is.
— Reprinted from Mystery.File.4, March 1988.
August 27th, 2025 at 6:04 pm
What I think I was referring to in the first sentence of this review is that the last 8 or 9 books in the series were out and out triple-X rated. I don’t know how well they sold, but it’s for sure that Kane wrote them for the money. They’re quite embarrassingly bad today, or that’s my view of them.
August 31st, 2025 at 1:12 am
I’ve always said when they chose Kane to write the novelization for Peter Gunn they were dead on.
August 31st, 2025 at 1:17 pm
Yes! Dead on perfect, that book was. Or at least the portion of it that I read before losing the book about a third of the way through. Never bought another. Something else I have to add to my wish list.