Last Call, by Tim Powers
There are not many authors who can steep themselves in the myths of the
Grail and the Fisher-King and put that together with mobster Bugsy Siegel
and a sleepy little town called Las Vegas and come up with
anything at all. Add in the tarot, poker superstitions, and a
generous helping of the truly odd, and you’ve got Last Call,
a long-time favorite of mine. Powers has a talent for making the
strangest things plausible for just long enough. For example, how do
camouflage an SUV against bad guys searching for it magically? Tape face
cards to the hub caps…..
I really don’t know what else to say about this book; it rather defies
description. It’s not a novel of the occult, though, despite the mention
of the tarot. Good triumphs over evil, and a case can be made that
underneath the symbolism it’s a deeply Catholic novel (Powers is Roman
Catholic, I recently discovered; who knew?).