Goodbye is Forever, the fifth book in Gregory Stout’s PI Jackson Gamble series, is a gritty classic-noir crime tale featuring Nashville’s music culture and a likeable and realistic protagonist. Read my full review.
Goodbye Is Forever Publisher's Synopsis
Nashville PI Jackson Gamble has had all manner of clients and cases during his long career as a private investigator, but never a client like the one involving convicted triple-murderer Harvey Harris. Until recently a death-row inmate, and now dying of untreatable cancer, Harvey wants to see his daughter one more time before his time runs out. The search seems simple enough, but the girl has been missing ten years, and the case quickly goes into the weeds as Gamble’s search takes him on a three-state chase that involves him with a beautiful woman, two murders, and a conclusion that even an experienced PI like Gamble never quite sees coming.
My Review
When the review request for Goodbye is Forever hit my inbox, the synopsis promised a classic-noir private investigator tale, one of my favorite genres. Gregory Stout did not disappoint me with the latest (fifth) novel of his Jackson Gamble series.
Gamble, a former police detective and now Nashville, Tennessee private investigator, somewhat reluctantly agrees to accept a missing persons case from a convicted triple murderer, Harvey Harris, incarcerated in a state prison for killing a customer and a pregnant convenience store clerk during a botched armed robbery.
After years on death row following his conviction, the state had commuted his death sentence to life in prison when a routine medical examination revealed that Harris was suffering from end-stage pancreatic cancer and had only a short time to live. Harris wanted the chance to speak with his adult daughter one last time whom he hadn’t seen or heard from in more than ten years. He asked Gamble to locate her, to inform her that he was dying and wanted to see her one last time before the end came.
While he felt little sympathy for Harris, the convict’s surprisingly upscale attorney promises to pay him for his time at his usual rate, so Gamble agrees to accept the case. But with little to go on other than a name and grainy photo from a 12-year-old promotional poster for a band the daughter, Annamaria “Annie” Harris had once been a part of, and unable to find anyone who knew her current whereabouts, Gamble found his search slow-going from the outset. But at five hundred a day plus expenses, he persists in the search.
Lacking any clues that might lead him to Annie Harris, Gamble takes on other cases to fill his time. One of them, working for Madelaine Miles, the attractive wife of a well-known and wealthy Nashville musician’s agent, Sonny Miles.
That job leads to friction between Gamble and Sonny Miles, who seems to believe Gamble has designs on his wife. That situation forms one of the interesting side plots that help move the story along until Gamble begins gaining some traction in his search for Annie Harris.
I found that Jackson Gamble reminded me a good bit of Robert B. Parker’s iconic private detective character, Spenser. He has a similar background and personality. Also, unlike the character Spenser was molded from, Raymond Chandler’s Philip Marlowe who is the loner-type, Gamble has a long-time love interest, Maggie Totten. Maggie fuses over Gamble’s health and his dangerous job but also offers occasional advice and is supportive. The couple’s interactions provide another interesting side plot to the story.
Stout is a gifted storyteller who effortlessly weaves the multiple threads of the tale to hold the reader’s interest. I thoroughly enjoyed his writing style. The character development was superb. Rarely am I able to read a novel these days in one sitting, but I found Goodbye is Forever such a satisfying page turner that was exactly what I did.
This book is perfect for fans of noir crime fiction, especially those who enjoy reading classic novels by authors like Dashiell Hammett, Raymond Chandler, and Robert B. Parker. I definitely plan to read the other books in the series, beginning with the first, Lost Little Girl, at my earliest convenience.
This honest review is based on the advanced reader copy/ARC of the paperback version of Goodbye is Forever, provided to me by a literary representative of the publisher. The book is also available as an eBook from multiple online booksellers.
My rating: ★★★★
BIO
Greg’s background includes 27 years as an executive in the automotive industry and twelve years as a teacher of American history, language arts, reading, drama, film criticism and Latin in the public school system in suburban Chicago. He holds a BA in economics from the University of Kansas and a Master of Arts in education from Aurora University.
Lost Little Girl, Stout’s debut mystery in the Jackson Gamble series, won the 2022 Shamus
Award for Best First PI novel. He is also the author of Gideon’s Ghost, a young adult novel which takes place in small-town America in the mid-1960s. He has also written 22 books on the history of American railroads. His first title, Route of the Eagles, was released in 1995. A complete listing of Greg Stout’s published works can be found at www.gregorystoutauthor.com. He resides with his wife, Carol, and two cats, Wallace and Gromit, in Cape Girardeau, Missouri, where he is a member of the Heartland Writers Guild and the Southeast Missouri Writers Guild.