The Library Journal: "Hard stuff but good."

Giorgio Pellegrino (the protagonist of The Goodbye Kiss) is an honest man now—or at least as honest as someone with his background can be. For 11 years, he has turned his back on his old career as a terrorist and criminal, but now his “honest” life unravels. Giorgio isn’t a nice man—he’s ruthless and hard, not at all likable—but it’s fun to see how he gets out of this jam. He has no regrets about what he does as long as it works. In the course of this brutal noir thriller, which includes rape, bribery, threats, pimping, and murder, almost everyone is tainted in some way. VERDICT: Richard Stark’s Parker might have looked like Giorgio if he’d grown up in a country like Italy. Hard stuff but good.

-David Keymer