The gruesome beheading murder of Shelagh Purdey and the suspicion that the local priest, on whose doorstep the head was delivered, is guilty of the crime is the seemingly mundane opening of what looks like a typical psychological thriller. Enter Mr Joe Panther, sometime private investigator, drug dealer, theological philosopher who is prone to violence and suddenly all preconceptions about what we're going to be in for are thrown right out the window.

You see, Joe Panther will have us believe that he is Jesus Christ, living an eternal life stuck at the age of 33 and now leading a quiet life in Melbourne, Australia. He quotes scripture and theological teachings at every opportunity, cites events from centuries ago at which he was a first hand witness and relives the events that led to his crucifixion and death. Joe Panther is the ultimate loner protagonist after experiencing centuries of the worst that humankind has to offer. Quite frankly, it's had an effect on him, he's tired of it all and he is just about ready to pack it all in.

The figure of Joe Panther is a suitably imposing one that threatens to overshadow the actual plot of the book, but after making his introductions and gently breaking his identity to us he gets down to work on what is to become a very perplexing case.

Panther's first task is to talk to Shelagh's parents to try to get an idea about whether she may have had any enemies that might have prompted such an extreme attack. Shelagh was brought up in a turbulent environment and moved out of home at a young age. When she died she lived on the streets and worked as a prostitute to feed her heroin habit (in fact, she was one of Joe's regular customers). But Joe Panther is not your normal type of investigator and by the time he has finished "interviewing" the parents he has managed to (i) attract the attention of the local police, and (ii) get himself beaten up by a receptionist.

As clumsy and ill-equipped as he is for the job, Joe does actually begin to make some progress on the case, not that it's terribly important to him. After all, as the Messiah who has lived for two thousand years now, there isn't a whole lot that concerns him, his standards have dropped and he's now more concerned about looking out for number one.

Obviously, we the readers make up our own minds about Joe Panther and his state of mental health. His utter conviction about his identity is pretty compelling as are his historical anecdotes and philosophical insights. Masterson sells the idea wonderfully well giving his premise of the modern-day Messiah a definite feeling of plausibility.

Racing from one unbelievable situation to the next, the pace is consistently quick yet Panther tends not to make a lot of progress. Instead he succeeds in finding trouble for himself while spouting more words of wisdom and reminiscences from centuries ago to further convince us of his credentials.

Apart from Joe Panther himself, the book is blessed with quite a few off-beat characters. Not the least is Panther's source of information, John the Baptist. John is simply an old drunk who earned his nickname because of his habit of blessing young children as he passes them, an innocent habit that the parents in the area have accepted. Unfortunately, John has a much more disturbing side to him that the owners of missing dogs in the neighborhood would be keen to know about.

Narrated by Joe Panther, an apocryphon is a secret religious book and The Last Days is effectively Joe Panther's diary observations complete with his thoughts both weird and wonderful. Is he the Messiah or simply a mentally disturbed drug addict? Whichever it is he is a thoroughly interesting man with an unexpected method of investigation that keeps the story fresh.

The Last Days : The Apocryphon of Joe Panther earned Andrew Masterson a Ned Kelly Award for Best First Australian Novel in 1998. The Ned Kelly Award is the Australian version of the Edgar Award for crime fiction.