LAST CALL

A New York City bar owner embarks on a deadly quest to identify a serial killer in this mystery.

Life is going well for Jude Dillane on New Year’s Eve. Her Corner Lounge bar and restaurant at 10th Street and Avenue B has turned into a New York hot spot, and she has a terrific man in her life. When her business partner, top chef Pete, reports a special knife missing from his kitchen, it’s worrisome. But the last thing Jude expects is to have the knife turn up in the chest of a man related to one of her regular customers. Worse, she learns from the FBI agent assigned to the case that the murder is disturbingly similar to killings that began on New Year’s Eve in the area 19 years ago. Apparently, what had been a five-year lull between deaths is now over, and a threatening note tells Jude—the novel’s first-person narrator—that she is in the serial killer’s sights. What’s Jude to do but start investigating on her own—especially if her suspicions are discounted by law enforcement officials and those closest to her? The familiar trope of the amateur female sleuth determined to track a killer—regardless of the risks to herself and others and the possible personal consequences if she ignores warnings from loved ones and the authorities—isn’t every reader’s cup of tea. And Jude does seem rather cavalier about distressing her loving boyfriend and chef, Pete. (“But still, what harm could it do to do a little digging just to satisfy my curiosity and maybe save my life?”) Nevertheless, readers should enjoy the behind-the-scenes bar setting, mouthwatering references to Pete’s culinary efforts, and offbeat characters. The players include Jude’s ex-Marine pal/landlord, a slimy reporter who works for a “slagheap of pseudo news and innuendo,” and a cadre of male customers called the bar’s “10th Street Irregulars,” who may or may not be who they seem. This is the second installment of Stoler’s Murder on the Rocks mystery series, and with frequent allusions to what happened in the first volume, Bar None (2020), readers may want to start there.

Colorful genre trappings enliven this familiar take on a resolute amateur female detective.