LAST CALL AT THE NIGHTINGALE - Katharine Schellman

 1920's New York City. What a great time to be an active, young woman. But Vivian Kelly has been feeling stuck in a rut. She lives in a tenement building with her sister and she works long hours every day sewing in a dress shop. To escape this dull routine, Vivian enjoys the secret nightlife available in the big city. The Nightingale is an underground dance hall. Liquor flows so freely it would hardly seem to be illegal. 

She's made friends with the bartender who will slip her a free glass of champagne now and then and she can dance the Charleston to her hearts content. Until one day when she discovers a body behind the club. Then a surprise raid on the club by the police (a surprise because there had been an agreement between the club owners and the police) and Vivian begins to realize that perhaps the body wasn't just a random vagrant, but someone of importance to people of power in the city.

Vivian comes to realize that the people with money have more power than she ever understood and that those without money are disposable and that she, without money, is believed to know more than she does about the dead man. Which means she needs to keep her head down to avoid being a target and/or figure out who killed the man and stay on the good side of those the man worked for.

This is not the first 1920's-era mystery I've read. It's a popular time, what with the jazz age and the illegal liquor and women starting to find some freedom to be who they want and flappers and ... Yeah, it's a popular era to use for a murder mystery, especially one with a female protagonist.

Unfortunately, it does feel as though the time period and setting are used efficiently.

Very little, plot-wise, would need to be changed if this were set in a back-alley bar in Manhattan today. So most of the setting is just window-dressing with the shades pulled down.

The mystery itself is fine. The writing is fine. There's really no fault anywhere along the lines (other than not using the time period). But there's also no energy or excitement to the book.  We're more caught up in Vivian's drudgery and keeping her nightlife activities a secret rather than living it up.

This is one of those books that I've written about before ... the hardest books to review are those that are 'okay'. This book is okay. Nicely written, nicely plotted. Fun but under-used setting. Main character unremarkable.

Looking for a good book? Last Call at the Nightingale by Katharine Schellman is a good book. Not outstanding, but good.

I received a digital copy of this book from the publisher, through Netgalley, in exchange for an honest review.

3-1/2 stars

* * * * * *

Last Call at the Nightingale

author: Katharine Schellman

series: Nightingale Mysteries #1

publisher: Minotaur

ISBN: 9781250831828

hardcover, 320 pages

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