Last Call
Author(s): Elon Green
The gripping true story, told here for the first time, of the Last Call Killer and the gay community of New York City that he preyed upon.
The Townhouse Bar, midtown, July 1992: The piano player seems to know every song ever written, the crowd belts out the lyrics to their favorites, and a man standing nearby is drinking a Scotch and water. The man strikes the piano player as forgettable.
He looks bland and inconspicuous. Not at all what you think a serial killer looks like. But that's what he is, and tonight, he has his sights set on a gray haired man. He will not be his first victim.
Nor will he be his last.
The Last Call Killer preyed upon gay men in New York in the '80s and '90s and had all the hallmarks of the most notorious serial killers. Yet because of the sexuality of his victims, the skyhigh murder rates, and the AIDS epidemic, his murders have been almost entirely forgotten.
This gripping true-crime narrative tells the story of the Last Call Killer and the decades-long chase to find him. And at the same time, it paints a portrait of his victims and a vibrant community navigating threat and resilience.
April 2021
Product Information
A Bustle Most Anticipated Debut of 2021
An O Magazine LGBTQ Book That Will Change the Literary Landscape in 2021
A Cosmopolitan LGBTQ+ Book to Add to Your Reading List in 2021
A Good Housekeeping Best True Crime Book of All Time
A terrific, harrowing, true-crime account of an elusive serial killer who preyed upon gay men in the 1990s... [Green] provides an adrenalized police-procedural plot without ever losing sight of the fact that these were innocent human beings who were duped, butchered and discarded. -The New York Times (Editor's Pick)
In this astonishing and powerful work of nonfiction, Green meticulously reports on a series of baffling and brutal crimes targeting gay men. It is an investigation filled with twists and turns, but this is much more than a compelling true crime story. Green has shed light on those whose lives for too long have been forgotten, and rescued an important part of American history. - David Grann, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Killers of the Flower Moon
Last Call feels like the most timeless literary true-crime classics, even as it forges a path through uncharted territory in the genre. Elon Green tenaciously yet gracefully investigates a time when so many lived in secret, and those secrets made them vulnerable to predation. A resonant, powerful book. -Robert Kolker, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Lost Girls and Hidden Valley Road
Last Call is not only a great book, nor a mere historical correction. It is an act of compassion... -The Boston Globe
A stunning addition to the gay corner of the true-crime genre... As an investigative crime writer Elon puts in the work, with a sense of sensitivity and compassion... The care, the research, the investment on display in Last Call signals to me, at least, that Elon Green rises above the function of a dispassionate observer. He writes like a communal friend. -Lambda Literary
[A] true-crime stunner... Green's sensitive portraits of the victims, and his deeply researched re-creation of an epoch of gay history, provide its soul. Inherently shocking material needs no dramatization... 'Last Call' is the kind of book that keeps you wide awake all night turning the pages. -The New York Times
Elon Green has written for The New York Times Magazine, The Atlantic, The New Yorker, and The Columbia Journalism Review, and appears in the true-crime anthology Unspeakable Acts. He has been an editor at Longform since 2011.
General Fields
- :
- : Celadon Books
- : Celadon Books
- : March 2021
- : April 2021
- : books
Special Fields
- : 272
- : Hardback
- : Elon Green