This could be the last case for Salter, who is at mandatory retirement age. He only gets this case through some political maneuvering. Younger officers on the murder squad aren't keen to work with a colleague who isn't up on computerized crime fighting, though they're willing to let Salter take the heat when the case goes cold and there's pressure from outside the department. At his age, Salter isn't worried about the impact on his career if he doesn't solve the case. And he'd rather work this case than spend his final few months as a deputy-chief's gofer. He's even assigned a gofer of his own, a young Scot with detecting experience from the Glasgow police whom Salter is to show the Toronto ropes.

The only trouble with retirement is that Salter hasn't planned what he'll do with all the free time. His oldest son, with a wife and daughter, has gone to work with relatives in Prince Edward Island. The second son is readying to move in with his girlfriend. Outside of family and work, Salter plays squash a couple times a week. That's it, but life, like a well written mystery, doesn't always work out the way its characters plan, or don't plan.

Salter has appeared in ten other novels by Wright, and they're as solid as any of the British detective thrillers that fill Canadian cable-channel television schedules. If The Last Hand starts a bit slowly while Charlie is dealt the case, it certainly moves steadily once he's seen his cards. Things really get going when Salter spends a night playing poker with several of his suspects.

Wright has inserted hints of police corruption in the book, increasingly an issue for Toronto's finest. Salter steers clear of these investigations, and maybe it's a subject Wright would rather not tackle. On the other hand, there's plenty of life to Salter yet, even while he collects his pension.