Last Call

2021 NPR Best Book of the YearThis true-crime gem - Green's first full-length work sensitively and incisively narrated by Pittu - is an illuminating and deeply humanizing testament to victims overlooked by the media and forgotten in cultural memory.... An insightful and essential conversation among author narrator and producer concludes this highly recommended recording. (Booklist starred review) *This program includes a bonus conversation with the author* 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. A Macmillan Audio production from Celadon BooksGreen’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 and David Pittu’s understated narration highlights the tragedy and horror of these crimes. “Last Call” is the kind of book that keeps you wide awake all night turning the pages. As an audiobook it will keep you wide awake all day as you drive hoping you don’t get wherever you’re going before it ends. (New York Time) 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 number one New York Times best-selling author of Killers of the Flower Moon)DAVID PITTU is a two-time Tony Award nominee as well as the award-winning narrator of countless audiobooks ranging in genre from young adult (Scholastic’s 39 Clues series) to spy fiction (Olen Steinhauer’s The Last Tourist and Milo Weaver series) to the contemporary fiction of authors such as Jeffrey Eugenides (The Marriage Plot) and Donna Tartt (The Goldfinch) and many more.Pittu received the Audie Award for Best Male Solo Narration for The Goldfinch which also received the Audie for Best Literary Fiction. Not only a veteran theater actor he works regularly in film and television. He lives in New York City.