Matt gets The Second Last Communiqué (review)

Thursday, January 26, 2023

Matt gets The Second Last Communiqué (review)

The Second Last Communiqué

D.J. Hall

Reviewed by Matt Adcock (@Cleric20)

"As the aging woman woke to the sounds of magpies warbling outside her bedroom window, she unhurriedly sat herself up in her bed, opened the side table drawer, took out her puffer, and inhaled her asthma medication."

So a barista, an ex-nazi SS scientist, and a heroin addict walk into a bar… Well, I say ‘bar’, I mean a mystery where they form the strangest of relationships as they are overtaken by incomprehensible realms and events.

Yes, we’re back in the weird, wacky, and pretty wonderful world of D.J. Hall… Not content with his oddball Third Last Communiqué - he’s back with the, erm *checks notes, Second Last Communiqué (to be honest I don’t know why it’s called that).

Anyway, James is back and here is the owner of a coffee establishment in the centre of the city of Melbourne. He’s a friendly type but little does he know that his latest pal is a time-spanning SS Nazi officer / murdering degenerate.

James enlists the help of his lover Lucy, a down-and-out junkie (trigger warning hard drug use), and to their

bewilderment, the couple discovers they are exceptional human beings. How you ask? Well they start to receive mathematical and engineering miracle theories - that take over the everyday things they see. But where these are coming from is unclear. James is tempted into trying heroin by Lucy and has an out-of-body experience as a Jewish concentration camp inmate.

As murders pile up around them, Lucy and James will eventually stand on the precipice of calamity as their lives come under the control of a sadistic madman who has unintentionally stumbled upon the elixir of eternal life.

If that all sounds like your cup of tea, and I can vouch that it’s as nutty and fun as it sounds - packing adult content violence and sex scenes along the way - get in on this action today!

Who is D. J. Hall?

D. J. or Darrell to his mates was born in the UK and now lives in Australia, married with two children and four grandchildren. He resides in a small hamlet on the Southeast coast of the Mornington Peninsula.

He's been employed at the Herald and Weekly Times, a major Australian newspaper, for numerous years. Also, having been an artist during this time, he allowed his imagination to expand by proceeding to bizarre narratives, leading to many exhibitions over the years. When covid hit, he decided to take another direction using his unique ideas. So Darrell chose to take up writing for no reason

other than he’d never done it before. And to his astonishment, like a tap being turned

on, the narratives just poured out and still are.

During this period, Darrell has had one published novel: The Third Last Communique, and has also illustrated several children’s books.

Follow him at:

Instagram : https://www.instagram.com/darrell.hall.3979/