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The author is a Professor of Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine at the University of California's Medical School at Davis. He has a Ph.D. degree in Biochemistry and does research on asthma and health effects of air pollution on the lungs. He is also a big fan of California mystery novels. A quick search of Amazon will turn up books and articles in biochemistry previously edited or authored by Jerry, as well as his South American mystery novel series. The settings and locales for all of these novels are authentic; the author lived previously in Salta, Argentina and Montevideo, Uruguay. He has ongoing collaborations with local scientists in Uruguay, Argentina, and Peru. The Surreal Killer is the third book in this series, following The Empanada Affair, set in Salta in Northwest Argentina, and The Ambivalent Corpse, set in Montevideo, Uruguay and the surrounding region. All of these mystery novels are available as Kindle books from Amazon; the first two books are also available from Smashwords, Apple, Nook, Kobo, and most other e-book dealers. A next book in this series, The Matador Murders, set in Montevideo and Santiago, Chile, is scheduled for publication on Amazon later this summer (2012).
Jerry writes hard-boiled mystery books that are fast moving and entertain the reader, while introducing the readers to a region where he has lived and worked that is a long way from home for most English speakers. Montevideo, Salta, Machu Picchu, and Iguazu Falls are charact
Reviewed by Paul Johnson for Readers' Favorite
Someone is leaving a trail of dead women across Chile, Peru, and Bolivia all seemingly killed in exactly the same vile way. Suspicions are that there may be a link to a small group of scientists who meet annually in different locations in the region. Private Investigator Roger Bowman and his Biochemist wife Suzanne Foster are asked by a local police friend to attend this year’s meeting of the group in Lima, Peru. Their mission is to try to find out who were all present at the previous meetings when the murders occurred. What follows is a fast-paced pursuit of the killer through Lima, Cuzco, and Machu Picchu in Peru and Chile’s Atacama Desert. Roger and Suzanne realize that the only way to find the true killer is to set themselves up as his next targets.
I found this to be a very interesting book. The book has a well-developed set of characters including a strong female lead as Suzanne uses her education and ability to help her private detective husband solve this string of gruesome killings. The plot is good and well thought out. The changing of the point of view is also attention-grabbing. By adding the internal thoughts of the serial killer the author has been able to keep up a high suspense level throughout the story. Mr. Last uses his descriptive ability to paint a vivid picture of the surroundings and its very distinctive populace. This to me was sometimes good but sometimes a little distracting with perhaps too many details. Overall, it is a well-written tale with a good, satisfying ending. Very good.
