As a Jazz Age novel, Last Call at the Nightingale took me in and out of the time, but I enjoyed the setting and loved all the diversity. I am not a big fan of historical novels, but I do have a soft spot for the Jazz Age. While Vivian would rather keep out of it, danger follows her as too many coincidental meetings start to occur and everyone starts to think she knows more than she actually does. Honor wants Vivian to keep an eye on a man who showed up the night after the dead body, a man with secrets who also happens to be sweet on Vivian. Bea wants nothing to do with it, but, when Vivian is picked up during a police raid, she ends up owing a favor to the woman who bailed her out: Honor Huxley, the owner of the Nightingale. Her best friend Bea is a young black woman working there as a waitress and, one night, they stumble on a body in the alley.
While Florence lives an upstanding life, with long hair, long skirts, and no alcohol, Vivian escapes the drudgery of her daily life by spending her nights at the Nightingale, a speakeasy where socialites mingle with working girls, men can dance with men, and women can kiss other women. It’s 1924 in NYC and Vivian Kelly and her older sister Florence are just scraping by as dressmakers. Overall, it’s fun and fairly quick, but I wished for the kind of world building that just dumped me into 1920s NYC. I also adored the main characters and those around them and really loved getting a close knit feeling of the Nightingale.
The character diversity was my favorite part and it was such a surprise at how much there is. It was a great introduction to her and the series and I appreciated how she’s smart, but also values self-preservation. I also liked Vivian’s back and forth on whether to investigate or not. The mystery was slow to start, but ended up being nicely layered without being too weighty and twisty. It nicely sets up the world as being both full of diversity and full of societal divides, but I wish more of the times had made it into the way the characters spoke.
Last Call at the Nightingale is the first in a Jazz Age mystery series.
One Sentence Summary: When Vivian accidentally spots a dead body in the alley outside her favorite speakeasy, everyone starts to think she knows more than she does, leading her straight into danger.
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