FFB: Rafferty: Last Seen Alive -- W. Glenn Duncan

About nine years ago I reviewed a book in W. Glenn Duncan's Rafferty series, and you can read those comments here.  What I said then is still true today, and I still find these books as entertaining as ever, solid p.i. novels like the ones from the Old Days, but with some more modern touches (well, modern means the '80s to me).  Be sure to check out the comments on the post linked above, as Duncan's son has recently posted some updated information and says the series is coming back into print.

In Last Seen Alive, Rafferty is taken out of his comfort zone and  the plot puts him in a sailboat on Lake Texhoma.  For a while.  The boat doesn't last that long.  But I'm getting ahead of myself.  First Rafferty has to meet a woman in a bar and do a little flirting, and then she has to get herself killed.  That's where the title comes in because Rafferty is the last one to see her alive, and he's soon the sheriff's top suspect in her murder.  Drugs are involved.  And goons and rednecks.  Cowboy and Mimi are called in to help (see the linked review for comments on those two; great characters).  Rafferty cites a number of his rules.

It's all sorted out in the end, and this is another fast-moving, often funny, always enjoyable outing for Rafferty.  P.I. fans take note.