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Reviews tagging 'Torture'

Last Call: A True Story of Love, Lust, and Murder in Queer New York by Elon Green

8 reviews

mandi_lea's review against another edition

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dark informative sad slow-paced

2.5

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ckbarnard_0317's review against another edition

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dark emotional informative mysterious tense fast-paced

4.25

True crime+ respectful reporting+ queer history= yes please. I was surprised that this was a debut book because it was so well-structured, with a good balance between the true crime aspects and historical context.
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hmatt's review against another edition

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challenging dark slow-paced

2.5

I'm firmly out of my true crime phase, but I suspect this book might be better liked by those who are more interested in the genre. 

I found the narration pretty dry and scattered. I know the author was attempting to tell the victims' stories, but it resulted in so many tangents about people who had no relevance to the crimes and made it hard for me to follow the main story. There wasn't a whole lot of mystery to the whole thing, but I don't think there was supposed to be. 
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doric's review against another edition

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dark tense medium-paced

4.25

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ktdakotareads's review against another edition

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dark medium-paced

3.0

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pomoevareads's review against another edition

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challenging dark informative mysterious sad slow-paced

4.0

“Sometimes you want to go
Where everybody knows your name
And they're always glad you came
You want to be where you can see
Our troubles are all the same
You want to be where everybody knows your name”
-Cheers theme song lyrics


This theme song fits in with The Townhouse and/or Five Oaks bars for many gay men in New York in the 1990s. There men could find other men, usually with a significant age difference either way, that they were attracted to and hang out over a piano and have drinks. The men had to be careful about who they decided to leave with as AIDS was taking a large population of men away from their friends and families. 

Author and long form journalist Elon Green writes about The Last Call killer who frequented these establishments and preyed upon the men who found a security in these neighbourhood piano bars.  Perhaps more correctly, Green writes about the men who became the victims. He writes about their upbringing and personality while sharing how the police finally cracked the case. 

I particularly enjoyed the details about the victims and the investigators to humanize the story. The author spent 3 years investigating and writing this book after realizing that there wasn’t even a Wikipedia page for this serial killer. This was a community of human beings that the community just seemed to have forgotten. There were errors in police handling of the evidence and in a seemingly political decision about when to arrest the suspect. Green also acknowledges a group of investigators who prioritized this case and without whom the killer may still be loose. 

Thank you to @celadonbooks for this book in exchange for an honest review. True crime fans will enjoy this book that came out March 9.
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wherethewildreadsare's review against another edition

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dark informative mysterious tense fast-paced

5.0

Wow, a fantastically researched story about a serial killer that isn’t as talked about due to the sexuality of his victims. Doesn’t dwell on the killer but brings to life the victims. Who they were before they were “victims” and what in their lives led them into the path of their killer!
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caseythereader's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional mysterious sad tense medium-paced

4.75

✨REVIEW✨ [ @celadonbooks #partner ]
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. (via Goodreads) 📚
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LAST CALL is not your typical portrait of a killer. Yes, there is some examination of his life, but this book is primarily a look at the Last Call Killer's known victims. We read about their daily lives, their personalities, and how they simply tried to cope with being gay in an era when people often even refused to touch gay people for fear of catching AIDS. 📚
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Green has managed to distill a huge amount of information - this book is clearly so deeply reported - into an easy to follow narrative. No small feat for a story that includes police and investigators from multiple states and precincts, victims with double lives, and more than a few dead ends. 📚
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LAST CALL is also a loving look at New York and its many subcultures. I could practically see the bar districts discussed here, feel the sticky floors and mourn the loss of gay bars with their patrons. 📚
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On top of all that, the final sections of the book, when the clues are coming together and the court case is proceeding had me on the edge of my seat. If you have any interest in true crime and/or queer history, put LAST CALL on your list. 📚
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Content warnings: Addiction, alcoholism, deat), gore (it's REALLY gory, y'all), hate crime, homophobia, physical abuse, torture, violence, police brutality, kidnapping. 📚
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