Elon Green’s ‘Last Call’ is part of a new trend in true crime focusing on the victims rather than the perpetrator, in an attempt to blunt the general ego gratification that criminals get from their notoriety. (Hallie Rubenhold’s ‘The Five: The Untold Lives of Women Killed by Jack the Ripper’ is a great example.) Green recreates the lives of these five known victims of this killer who preyed on gay men at least in the 1990s and possibly as early as the 1970s. In so doing he creates a richly contextualized picture of the challenges faced by gay men and lesbians in this period: fears of AIDS that plagued them, but also gave rise to intensified “gay panic”; closeted men’s fears of being outed; and the search for companionship and sex among lonely, ostracized people. This is a much-needed style of true crime, but it does lack the suspense of the hunt for a reason—however unsatisfying or misplaced. Green does an excellent job at piecing together the forensic story, however, which is also suspenseful. This book is not for the squeamish.