One of the best books I have read so far this year. Fast paced with many twists and turns. Definitely a page turner. 5 Star book. ( )

I have really enjoyed Mr. Parks's Carter Ross books and so I was excited to read this stand alone novel. It was essentially pretty good but some gaping logic and plot holes really took me out of the story and so it gets 3 stars. I read it mostly on a cross county flight and it was perfect reading as I got later in the day and my attention was waning. I liked the voice he created for his main character Tommy Jump and the story is mostly entertaining, but I saw some solutions that were dismissed out of hand and that bothered me. ( )

A fun, gripping thriller from Parks where a down & out Broadway actor takes on a role for the feds and gets in way over his head! A natural storyteller who entertains you with character and compels with twists you never see coming. ( )

In an author’s note, Parks reveals the book was motivated by a real-life episode. Between 2004 and 2007, the U.S. mega-bank Wachovia failed to use appropriate money-laundering controls and cleansed at least $378 billion dollars from the Mexican drug cartel Sinaloa, reaping billions of dollars in fees. While the bank ultimately received a fine, modest compared to its gains, “no Wachovia executive faced criminal charges, nor served a single day in prison.” Wachovia was subsequently bought by Wells Fargo, where the practice has continued.
But can Parks’s sense of outrage translate into fiction without becoming polemical? Absolutely. His unlikely protagonist is Tommy Jump, a former child star, small in stature but aging out of his career in musical theater and still too young for character roles. He’s at loose ends, ending a gig as Sancho Panza in The Man of LaMancha, when he’s approached by an old high school buddy, now an FBI agent. He offers Tommy a deal.
The FBI wants the actor to pose as a felon and infiltrate the minimum-security Federal Correctional Institution in Martinsburg, West Virginia, where convicted banker Mitchell Dupree is confined. As a bank executive, Dupree helped a Mexican drug cartel launder more than a billion dollars, and has hidden away a trove of evidence, which the FBI hopes can bring the cartel to its knees. But the documents are Dupree’s insurance policy. If anything happens to him or his family, they will be released to the authorities. So he’s not sharing.
They want Tommy to find out where they’re hidden. It will be the acting job of his career. No one at the prison, not even the warden, will know he’s not a real prisoner, because secrets have an inconvenient habit of leaking. He’ll have six months to befriend Dupree and discover where the documents are. In return, he’ll be at least $150,000 richer. Tommy’s out of work, his pregnant girlfriend is an artist with no regular income. They don’t want to think of themselves as people tempted by money, but they are.
As Tommy, now Pete, enters prison, author Parks does a terrific job describing his mental state and coping mechanisms, and the strategies he uses to befriend Dupree. You get a strong sense not just of the physical environment, but of the power structure and the people within it.
That’s the set-up. I won’t say more about plot, because you should discover for yourself the agonizing twists Parks has in store. As every major character launches some competing smokescreen, this is a book you won’t be able to put down. ( )

I've really enjoyed Brad Parks' last two stand alone suspense novels and was looking forward to reading his latest - The Last Act.

The premise is one I always enjoy - 'everyday guy in a bad situation'. In The Last Act it is an actor named Tommy Jump. The work has dried up, he has a child on the way and he needs monehy. Then he receives an offer from an FBI agent he knew when they were kids. Go undercover in a prison and cosy up to a banker convicted of working for a drug cartel. The FBI needs documents the banker he has hidden in order to bring the cartel down. The pay they're offering would set up Tommy nicely - and it's only for six months. Tommy takes the job......And you just know something's going to go wrong......

Oh boy! Parks has written an absolutely addicting read! Tommy is a great lead character and you can't help but cheer him on. There are some chapters from his girlfriend Amanda as well and I liked her just as much. The drug cartel is also given a voice. As we hear from them, it just ramps up the danger factor as we realize what Tommy has gotten himself into.

Parks put lots of stumbling blocks in front of Tommy as he tries to elicit the information the FBI needs. Often I find I can guess where a plot is going to go - but Parks truly surprised me with the first big twist in the book. I did not see it coming. And he follows up with several more twisty turns I had not anticipated. There are many red herrings along the way to keep the reader guessing as well.

And yes, some of the plotting requires a few grains of salt, but just go with it. The Last Act reads like a movie and I can absolutely see it on the big screen. Brad Parks is firmly on my 'must read' list of authors - I can't wait for his next book! ( )