Last Call: A True Story of Love, Lust, and Murder in Queer New York
February 23, 2023 10:11 AM - Subscribe

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.

[Blurb from the publisher's website]
posted by quatsch (1 comment total) 1 user marked this as a favorite
 
I listened to this audiobook on a long drive, and was struck by how humane and non-sensational the narrative was. I had never heard anything about this string of murders until the (imo offensive [and not the campy-shocking Ryan Murphy register I enjoy sometimes]) most recent season of American Horror Story. This telling is diametrically opposed to the AHS version, with most of the focus falling on the lives the victims lived and the social and bureaucratic conditions that prevented the crimes from being solved for so long.
posted by quatsch at 10:17 AM on February 23, 2023 [1 favorite]


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