The Last Spin is a short story written by Evan Hunter, a American writer specialized into crime fiction. It tells a story about two rivaling gangs, which are trying to get peace between each other by selecting one boy from both sides to play Russian roulette. That way they try to avoid fighting on streets. ¨

The main protagonist of the short story is Danny, a member in a gang that uses blue and gold jackets. Danny meets Tigo, a member of rivaling gang, in a basement. Boys state to each other that there is nothing personal in this event. The two boys have not even met before.

The boys begin the game with one bullet. Tigo offers to go first. He points the gun to his temple and fires, but there is no bullet in the chamber. He hands the gun to Danny, but again: no bullet in the chamber. The game goes on and on until Tigo decides to add one more bullet to speed things up.

During the game the boys are having a talk about girlfriends, their families, gangs, guns and army… The boys realize that they have more in common than it appears. Again Tigo ads one bullet, making the odds now 3:6. Still the game goes on. The boys start to think their lives and how they are controlled by the gangs. They decide that Danny is going to try one more time; if nothing happens, they would leave the basement and resign from their gangs and start a new life. Danny raises the gun to his forearm and fires. For Tigo’s horror, the gun fires, ripping away half of Danny’s head, shattering his face. The story ends as Tigo puts his face on the table and starts to cry.

Hunt’s story is more of a drama story rather than a crime story, which he is used to. Although it tells a story about gang members solving a conflict, it still focuses more into the growing friendship of the two boys. The plot itself is not very addicting as the key element, the Russian roulette, slowly sneaks into backgrounds.

Narration is often pretty straight forward, but you can find parts with quite a lot of description. Language of the story is quite is easy to understand.

Personally I don’t think that Ethan Hunt’s The Last Spin to be so wonderful. Still it is well written and quite entertaining.