Description
Unlike his many previous books, The Last of the Swindlers is a retro murder mystery, set in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Western North Carolina in 1978.
Earlier in his life, Loewer himself worked as the editor of a small-town newspaper, and he drew on his experiences there to create the novel.
As the publishing trade begins its transition from traditional cold-type to electronic publishing, The Last of the Swindlers captures the magic of story-gathering and small-town politics as it evolves into tracking down a double murderer, a smuggling ring, and fraud. The protagonist, Oliver Swindler, risks his own life and that of his new-found girlfriend and coworker, Adrian Knapp, to solve the many layers of mystery that beset Fernglade, NC.
The novel also previews, in an unexpected way, the current phenomenon of wealthy big-city residents’ flight to smaller, less urbanized areas of the country. Although today’s migration is to escape the Covid-19 pandemic, the book paints a wry picture of self-indulgent rich people’s search for an “undiscovered paradise” (with, of course, all the comforts of the metropolis).
