"Scarily relevant to our modern times" - review of LAST BASTION

LAST BASTION by Alan Carter (Fremantle Press, 2026)

Reviewed by Craig Sisterson

While his co-conspirators enjoy a government amnesty, Sam Willard is in prison, paying the price for exposing war crimes. Surrounded by enemies eager for revenge, his greatest challenge is survival. But then a mysterious federal agent offers him a dangerous his freedom in exchange for infiltrating an extremist group to rescue the son of a radical politician. With an old adversary lurking in the shadows, Sam must navigate a web of deception and danger. 

Meanwhile, Detective Sergeant Jill Wilkie is on the case of a series of racially motivated attacks and as tensions escalate, so does the danger. As Hobart becomes a battleground for competing ideologies, one slip will expose Sam – and ignite the very attack Jill Wilkie must stop. Will Tasmania become the last bastion for far-right extremists? 

British-born TV documentarian and novelist Alan Carter has called Australasia home for more than three decades –  living in Western Australia, then the Marlborough Sounds in New Zealand, and now Tasmania. It’s the latter landscapes where he sets his latest crime thriller, Last Bastion, which sees the return of disgraced former Australian special forces soldier Sam Willard and aging local Tasmanian Detective Sergeant Jill Wilkie, from Carter’s recent novel Prime Catch. 

Now a whistleblower languishing in prison, while his fellow soldiers enjoy a government amnesty despite their alleged war crimes, Willard is offered a ‘get out of jail free’ card by a mysterious federal agent, with a nasty fishhook: he has to infiltrate a far-right extremist group, and successfully extract the son of a populist politician, if he wants to keep his freedom.  

Meanwhile, DS Wilkie is investigating a rising tide of racist attacks in Hobart, including a ‘lucky to survive’ stomping and hospitalisation of a foreign student. Is this a disjointed response to hate-fuelled politicking at home and abroad, or something far more coordinated? 

What is it all building towards? 

It’s not long before DS Wilkie’s case tangles up with Willard’s unofficial undercover operation. But with powerful people in and out of the government who are used to keeping secrets and achieving their goals ‘by any means necessary’ circling events, can either Willard or Wilkie come out of this unscathed? 

A consummate storyteller, Carter knows how to spin a good yarn. 

Scarily relevant to our modern times, Last Bastion delves into the dangers of extremism and the politicians and others who feed their careers and wallets by peddling hate.

Craig Sisterson is a lawyer turned writer, editor, podcast host, awards judge, and event chair. He's the founder of the Ngaio Marsh Awards, co-founder of Rotorua Noir, author of Macavity and HRF Keating Award-shortlisted non-fiction work SOUTHERN CROSS CRIME, editor of the DARK DEEDS DOWN UNDER anthology series, and writes about books for magazines and newspapers in several countries.