The Last Canadian

By William C. Heine

Book Overview

A fresh collection of cryptic crosswords, filled with all the irreverent wordplay--anagrams, reversals, homophones, charades, double definitions, and palindromes--for which Henry Hook is known. This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Mass Market Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: B002GY99P0
• Release Date: January 1974
• Publisher: Pocket Books
• Weight: 0.35 lbs.

Customer Reviews

A Terrorist's Wet Dream

I read the American version of this novel "Death Wind" about 20 years ago. Although the novel was originally penned in 1974 at the height of the Cold War, the idea of an engineered biological weapon of mass destruction being released in the United States to wipe out the entire population of the Americas is as timely today as it was then. The novel follows Gene Arnprior as he struggles to save his family from the killer plague, by taking them to a remote fishing camp in the Canadian wilderness. There, they begin a new life together, learning to live off the land, until a wandering plague survivor happens upon them. Only Gene survives. After burying his family, he returns to the United States, and learns how his fellow plague survivors have adapted to their new lives. He also learns that the plague that wiped out his family, and his country, was a deliberate attack, engineered by the Russians (hey, it was written in 1974). And the Russians are still trying to kill Gene and the rest of the plague survivors. Not to give away the rest of the novel, but let's just say payback's a bitch.

nutty mix of ingredients creates memorable debut novel

This was a pretty wild debut for William C. Heine. In the first 50 pages he kills off the populations of North and South America with a super virulent plague--and that is only the beginning! The action follows one man as he gets his wife and two sons to the upper northern wilds of Quebec. Once they arrive there and learn of the utter devastation of the rest of the continent you think the story will follow the somewhat standard "survival against nature" JEREMIAH JOHNSON situation wherein the new pioneer family grimly struggles on-- but that is not the case here, not by a long shot! This one really threw me for a loop--more than once. There are enough plot twists and story arcs for a dozen other end of the world novels in THE LAST CANADIAN and anyone who has read and enjoyed THE STAND, EARTH ABIDES or movies like THE WORLD THE FLESH AND THE DEVIL, THE QUIET EARTH or 28 DAYS LATER will like this one.