The Last Nightingale

San Francisco, 1906. The great West Coast city is a center of industry and excitement-and also, to many, of sin. When the Great Earthquake hits, some believe it is the day of reckoning for the immoral masses.

Meanwhile, twelve-year-old Shane Nightingale is witness to the violent deaths of his adoptive mother and sisters-not from the earthquake, but at the hands of a serial killer. As Shane wanders the city appearing to be just another anonymous orphan, he keeps what he has seen a secret. But when his path crosses that of Sergeant Randall Blackburn, who is in pursuit of the killer, the two become an investigative team that will use both a youth's intuitive gifts and a policeman's new deductive techniques and crime-fighting tools to unmask a vicious murderer whose fury can be as intense as that of Mother Nature herself.

"Every historical mystery tries to hone in on the ideal setting at the perfect moment in time. Anthony Flacco succeeds on both counts in his first novel ....Flacco imagines the chaos in precise and vivid detail while contributing his own distinctive narrative touch.
--Marilyn Stasio, NY Times Book Review

"...Few literary depictions of the 1906 San Francisco earthquake match the intensity and visceral power of those in Flacco's gripping first novel. The author's screenwriting talent shines in this story of the earth's destructive power and humanity's moral depravity. ...The emerging maniacal personality, revealed in increasingly gruesome and venomous detail, rivals the Ripper....Dickens meets Hannibal Lecter. Brace yourself."
--Booklist

"Screenwriter Flacco nicely evokes the aftermath of San Francisco's 1906 earthquake in his fiction debut, a novel of suspense."
--Publisher's Weekly

"The author does an excellent job of providing a historical novel blended with fiction with the 1906 earthquake as a big part of the story. This one is a real page-turner and I look forward to more in this series. This book is highly recommended.
--Nancy