The Last Spin is a short story written by Evan Hunter. It tells a story of two young men who are chosed to settle a conflict which is going on between their gangs, instead of all the gangs members taking part in a street fight. These two men, Danny, who is the main character of the short story, and Tigo, a member of the rival gang. Danny and Tigo have to settle their gangs’ disagreements by playing Russian roulette until one of them is dead.

The story develops as Danny and Tigo take turns pulling the trigger (at first there is only one cartridge in the sylinder) and everytime they pull it, they learn more from each other and start realizing that they do in fact have very much in common. Both of them have joined their gangs only because the gang was ruling the street they happened to live in. And either one of the boys didn’t even like their gang’s members. In the end they realize that they can choose their own friends. In the very beginning of the story Danny thinks of Tigo as his enemy only because he was told so and later on he realizes how stupid that is. I think this is one of the important things that the writer has wanted to bring up.The story is located in a dark basement, which creates an istant tension to it. And also the story’s concept is very interesting and it sucked me in during the very first lines. The tension rises trhoughout the whole story as Danny and Tigo add more cartridges to the sylinder. Thew plot progresses mostly through the dialogue, and they speak colloquial language, they use the word ”piece” for gun for example. They also speak of their  gangs as ”clubs”, which was pretty prominent.

In the end, Danny asks Tigo to come to the lake with him next sunday, this is a sign that they have become friends and also means that they will leave behind their former lives with their gangs. They make a deal that only one last spin will be made, with rather a sad consequense. I must say that this novel suprised me really positively, the characters were interesting and had much depth. It also tells how cruel life in a gang can be.