The Last Kind Words

The Last Kind Words (Terrier Rand #1)

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3.72 of 5 stars 3.72  ·  rating details  ·  438 ratings  ·  115 reviews
From International Thriller Writers Award winner and Edgar Award nominee Tom Piccirilli, this mesmerizing suspense novel explores the bonds of family and the ways they’re stretched by guilt, justice, and the chance for redemption.

Raised in a clan of small-time thieves and grifters, Terrier Rand decided to cut free from them and go straight after his older brother, Collie...more
Hardcover, 336 pages
Published June 12th 2012 by Bantam (first published May 29th 2012)
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karen
mmmm... love this book.

a family of thieves, in various states of leaving the lifestyle behind them, living in a custom-made house where generations-worth of ill-gotten loot is squirreled away behind the walls, growing old and soft together; the older generation succumbing to alzheimers, and the younger ones either trying to go straight, or to make the decision to follow the family trade.

one of their own is behind bars after a spree killing, which is completely against the family code: the rands...more
Melissa
This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.
Lou
This story involves kin and crimes. Two brothers one incarcerated awaiting a needle of death. His has murdered eight people, a family of five on vacation, a gas-station attendant, an old lady beaten to death and a young woman strangled in a park. He killed them with no real motive mindless and senseless actions. His brother on the outside is also a thief and tries to piece together his brothers killing of one young girl and other girls recently murdered. He must get to the truth amongst the corr...more
Annie Michelle

This book would make a fantastic movie!
Don't let the title fool you as it did me into thinking it would be somewhat of a light romp....
This "canine second story" thieving family is really, really messed up
A story of a family of grifters entwined in petty crime until their eldest son commits murder and the devastating effects on all who love him.
The oldest son Collie is in prison waiting on the needle for going mad dog and savagely murdering seven people... or was it six and if so who is out th...more
Lauren
I won this book in a goodreads giveaway.

The Last Kind Words tells the story of Terrier Rand and his family of thieves as they cope with one of their own falling into the underneath and going on an eight victim killing spree. The Rand's grip on the life they once lived where family goes before anything else is slowly spiraling out of control.

For such a harsh tale, the writing is both soft and beautiful. I found myself genuinely caring for these characters despite their sins and transgressions. Al...more
Kate Savage
A family of thieves is forced to examine their past and future as one of the sons is about to be put to death for a murder spree he went on five years ago.

The men of the Rand family, all named after dog breeds, are well known for breaking into houses, stashing loot, and juking the local crime syndicate in card games. Terrier Rand comes back after skipping out 5 years ago to after his brother Collie went haywire and became a mass murderer. He ran away to figure things out and lead a legit life. N...more
Mallory Anne-Marie Forbes
A riveting novel at times crime fiction, at others suspenseful and thrilling, but at all times the heartfelt story of a truly dysfunctional yet tightly bonded family of thieves on Long Island. Several generations of Rands have been criminals of various sorts, seldom violent, always charming, elusive, and creepy. Some are cat burglars, some card sharks, some con artists. But five years ago one did turn violent: Collie (every born member of the family for four generations bears the name of a breed...more
Bill
I have no doubt that writing books can be hard. While I can empathize with the author's idea of just rewriting a book that you've already published, I cannot sympathize when I'm the person stuck reading a copy of something I waded through just a few months ago. Mr. Piccirilli's The Last Kind Words has just a little too much in common with Headstone City to be truly comfortable. Both books feature a protagonist that returns from exile to his childhood home. Both long for their one true love. Whil...more
James Thane
This book is less a crime novel and more a meditation on the family ties that both bind us together and drive us totally nuts. After suffering a personal crisis, Terrier Rand left his close-knit family of thieves and grifters and ran away to become a ranch hand. Five years later, he is called home to visit his elder brother, Collie. (It's a family tradition that all of the Rands are named after dog breeds.)

Collie is days away from being executed for multiple murders. Murder is a crime totally fo...more
Robert Beveridge
Tom Piccirilli, The Last Kind Words (Bantam, 2012)

Full disclosure: this book was provided to me free of charge by Amazon Vine.

I have never sat down and made an all-time-top-1000 list of books the way I have with movies. However, if and when I do, I can pretty much guarantee you that at least one slot in the top 100 will be locked up by Tom Piccirilli—specifically by A Choir of Ill Children, which remains the single best Southern-Gothic novel to have ever crossed my path. And the wider I cast my...more
Michael Sherer
Reading Tom Picirilli’s Last Kind Words is like going ten rounds with a champion heavyweight prizefighter. All you can do while his brilliant prose and beautifully wrought scenes batter you senseless emotionally is admire his artistry. I won’t bother with a plot synopsis, since plot is almost irrelevant in this family saga. That’s not to say that the book doesn’t have one, or that it isn’t compelling. But what makes this book so terrific is the premise that the family business is thievery, and t...more
JoAnne Pulcino
THE LAST KIND WORDS

By Tom Piccirilli

This impressive creative title captured my imagination and became so integral to the plot and content of the book that it is one of the reasons I was drawn into and captured by this pitch perfect, action packed thriller.

This atmospheric noir novel has a cast of intriguing and fascinating characters. They are a charming family of anti heroes with all their idiosyncrasies. The reader is introduced to the Rand family who for generations have been grifters, card s...more
Martha Bryce
This was a wonderful read. Drawing on the compelling and fascinating, yet wildly unbelievable Rand family, Piccirilli creates a world that we are drawn into and unable to leave. The Rands are grifters, with many generations of professional thieves, all whose first names are the names of dogs: Terrier, the protagonist goes by Terry and has come home from his self imposed exile at the request of his brother Collie, who is on death row for the murders on an entire family, as well as an attractive...more
Tim Niland
Terry Rand left his home and family on Long Island five years ago after a series of personal tragedies to work as a ranch hand out west. Called back by his family on the eve of his brother's execution for multiple murder, his brother confides in him that he did not kill one of the victims attributed to him and asks Terry to find the real killer. The Rand family isn't what you would call mainstream, a family full of thieves and grifters, they have made their money through gambling and conning wit...more
Larry
Perhaps the only thing that could bring Terrier Rand home again was the message that his soon-to-be-executed brother wished to see him. Not that Terrie harbored any brotherly love for his condemned sibling; they had enjoyed a mutual dislike, if not hatred, for each other all their lives, and Collie upcoming date with a lethal injection meant little to Terry.

Nor did he have any particular wish to renew his ties with the Rand family, having broken with them, and the family's business - grifting, r...more
Larry Hoffer
So let's get this out of the way: nearly every member of the main family in this book, The Rands, are named for dog breeds. It's a somewhat bizarre affectation that sometimes proves a little distracting, but don't let that stop you from reading this fantastic, brooding book from Tom Piccirilli.

Terry (Terrier) Rand was born into a family of thieves. His father, Pinsch (Pinscher), was a cat burglar who never seemed entirely enamored of the life; his uncles, Mal (Malamute) and Grey (Greyhound), alw...more
Nick Cato
One of the most rewarding things as a reader is to see a writer you admire continue to get better. With his latest crime noir novel, THE LAST KIND WORDS, Tom Piccirilli proves he has not only mastered the genre, but also made it his own.

After leaving his family in Long Island five years ago to work out west as a ranch hand, Terry Rand is called back home two weeks before his brother, Collie, is scheduled to be executed after being convicted of a brutal killing spree. While Collie has admited to...more
Michael
I picked up this novel because I got an email from Amazon recommending this book because I liked Drive by James Sallis. While I didn’t believe it would be anything like Drive the synopsis did intrigue me. Terrier Rand grow up in a household of thieves and grifters; from a very young age Terry had been engaging in theft. He left his family and life to go straight but five years later has been dragged but when his brother is claiming to be innocent of one of the victims of his killing spree. His b...more
Greg
Tales from Long Island

(this isn't so much a review as a rambling of some not quite right in the head people I've known in my college days.)

This book is excellent. Not perfect, but very very good. You might want to consider reading it. It might be the sleeper hit of this year's reading for you (sorry, I couldn't figure out what to call that, this season's reading? What season?)

Karen wrote a good review of this book and it gives the major plot stuff you might want to know about. So you should read...more
Laura Leaney
A mildly compelling story about a rather far-fetched crime family whose members are all named after dog breeds: Terrier (Terry), Shepherd (Shep), Malamute ( Mal) - you get the picture. This particular family has a rather strict code of conduct with regard to their crimes - no guns, no violence, stoic non-talkativeness, etc. - but a strain of mental illness has begun to show in the brains of a few of them. Shep, the family patriarch, suffers from Alzheimer's disease, and Mal is beginning to look...more
Rosa
Before I started this novel, I saw numerous comparisons between it and Dennis Lehane's "Mystic River", a book I loved. The comparisons are apt - both novels are beautifully evocative... just about every page drips with regret, suspicion, wasted love and potential, and the whole thing of trudging on under the weight of a terrible and inescapable history. The reason for the 3 stars is that I thought the core mystery that all the excellent mood-building was framed around, the actual "whodunit" part...more
Dawn
I was surprised at how very much I liked this book and how much this tragic story of an enigmatic family of thieves named after dog breeds moved me. I was sorry to come to the end. I became a Terrier fan fairly early in the book, and that feeling only grew stronger the farther into the book I read.

The story begins when Terrier (Terry) is called and asked to come home to visit his brother, Collie, who is on death row, soon to be executed for a string of murders he committed one night five years p...more
Joe
I loved this book.

Tom Piccirilli writes with a style that I thoroughly enjoy. The story is well done and the mystery is compelling, but I enjoyed even his descriptions of mundane details. He is just a really fun author to read. The Rand family is so well developed that their dysfunction seems normal.

Piccirilli tells the story through the eyes of Terrier Rand. His family issues, history and personality come through clear and hold your attention.

The only other book I read by Piccirilli was Shad...more
Keith Johnson
So glad I won this book in a Goodreads First Reads giveaway contest. I've never read anything by Tom Piccirilli. That will soon change. I read this book in 2 days, and actually would have read it in one night if it wasn't midnight and I had to get to bed. Like most readers/tv fans/movie watchers, I like crime drama. However, I like out-of-the-ordinary crime dramas. The show Grimm, for example, which pits a special cop against grimm fairy tale characters. Or the show Castle, which has a writer an...more
Shaun Ryan
Pic's latest is literary noir at its best.

If you like beautifully drawn characters with hard edges, this book is for you. It's full of them and they leap off the page. But the real grabber is the pain, the regret, the self-doubt and uncertainty. And yes, the drive and strength and determination too.

The big theme is identity; Terrier Rand struggles with who he is and, more importantly, who he might become. I love this theme, and so does Mr. Pic, if his previous novels are any indication. But the...more
Gatorman
This was, without question, one of the best books I've read in a while. The story of the Rand clan, a bunch of thieves and scam-artists all named after dogs, and the aftermath of one son's murderous rampage, is a smart, dark, intense tale that pulls no punches. The writing is spot-on and each character has a life of its own that you love getting to know despite feeling dirty just associating with them. What could have turned into another family member-turned Hardy Boy investigation into whether...more
Skip
Part of a family of small-time thieves and grifters, Terrier (Terry) Rand flees west after his older brother, Collie, goes on a killing spree, abandoning the love of his life Kimmy, who has just miscarried. Days before his brother's scheduled execution, Collie asks Terry to return home to help stop a serial killer, who actually murdered one of his victims. Collie's claim is partially substantiated by the kisses on all but one of the victims. Terry comes back to town and starts investigating, wor...more
Em
I was looking for a quick break from the 75,000 pages of Game of Thrones my friend begged me into... I guess I got it. I finished this, but I like my noir suspense with a bit less angsting by the antihero. Fairly unusual premise, solid writing, a great cover, and a resolution that I didn't guess but that made sense - still, only an "it was ok" rating, due to the endless hand-wringing by the narrator. Several huge questions went unanswered, which is either a set-up for the next book, or a risky m...more
Carol
The Rand family is a bunch of thieves and con men, but they are not known for violence. Until Collie Rand goes on a rampage and murders several people one night. Five years later, Collie's brother Terry returns to visit Collie on death row, and Collie claims that one of the murders was not his work.

I found this book a bit slow in the first half, but it does pick up nicely. I didn't really like the way the mystery was resolved; it seemed to rely more on intuition and barely-founded suspicion than...more
Elizabeth
This book is dark and brooding. The characters are not easy to like or easy to relate to but that seems to be part of the point - we are all unknowable and you may not ever understand why someone does the things they do. Looking back at this book, it feels like the author was trying to make sense of senseless acts and perhaps he's found a way to live with them.

I'm not sure if I would seek out more books by this author. I think he has something to say and the next one could be brilliant but his...more
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Do Some Damage: Sub-plots 3 13 Jul 03, 2012 09:33am  
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