Last Call By Elon Green is A True Story of Love, Lust, and Murder in Queer New York”. It is the true crime story of four dead bodies found in plastic trash containers, in bins along major streets in New Jersey, New York, and Pennsylvania.
In the early 1990s the Last Call killer targeted gay men in New York. I’ve read many true crime story over the years, and it’s not difficult to feel sorry. Sorry about the victims and the friends and family they left behind. I felt even more bad after reading this book and knowing the victims’ sexuality. As after knowing sexuality very little attention was paid to the crimes in those days or even now. What is additionally sad is knowing there are undoubtedly other undiscovered victims of this serial killer.
In case you don’t consider the Acknowledgements and Notes. Last Call: A True Story of Love, Lust, and Murder in Queer New York is a little more than 200 pages. Which I think is very short for a true crime book particularly one including multiple crimes. However, I think this book describes the details of the crime, the victims, and the killer, very well. Along with that this book also explains much about the community in New York during the 80s and 90s.
The writer works brilliantly painting the image of what life resembled for a gay man during that time. You have the AIDs epidemic, the fear of being outed if you were closeted, widespread homophobia, and hate crime. These where crimes that weren’t taken very seriously by the overall population or law enforcement. It is a tragic and infuriating reading however one that is positively significant in order not to forget the history.
I think Last Call By Elon Green is a good read. However, it is not the best true crime book I have ever perused. I had a feeling that I was getting a preview of the victim’s life and afterward the writer would proceed onward to the following one. There were many names raised in the book, not only victims, but there are others. Others that were part of the NYC social scene and it was troublesome to keep track of everybody. I likewise was surprised the authors hardly gave any time to the court case. That is simply a minor issue however as generally speaking I discovered it to be an entrancing read.
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