The Bottom Line: Brilliantly told, this nail-biter about the effort to free a convicted killer will make you question everything you know about our legal system. Highly recommended.
Last Call opens in a hole-in-the-wall bar in Denver, Colorado. It’s 2004, and bartender Paul Humphries is worried about a boisterous troublemaker sitting at a corner table named Dennis. After Dennis starts aggressively hitting on three much younger women, Paul tries but fails to get Dennis and his friends to leave. The confrontation doesn’t end there. After hours, Dennis and an accomplice jump Paul in the alley behind the bar, resulting in a violent struggle with fists, blades and motor vehicles.
Twenty years after Dennis’ murder conviction, his world-weary mother visits the Fleck, Collins, and Marcotte Agency. She claims her son is the victim of a wrongful conviction, and one of the partners, Eddie Fleck, is the person who put him there. The visit comes after two decades of appeals that went all the way up to Colorado and the U.S. Supreme Courts. While the legal battle ruined Dennis’ family financially, a recent inheritance from a deceased brother has fueled a renewed vigor to fight on her son’s behalf.
The third entry in the Marcotte and Collins series explores themes of justice, morality and redemption. It also examines a well-intentioned but flawed legal system. Dennis may have had clear motive, means and opportunity, but was the evidence actually circumstantial? Yes, there’s a knife with Paul’s blood on it, but much discussion revolves around the presence of Paul’s wallet in Dennis’ garbage can. How did it get there? Could it have been planted by someone else? Not according to Eddie, who advises his partners that “Not everything’s a conspiracy.”
Last Call becomes a true nail-biter when Paul is linked to a mysterious high-end security company called Merriman Enterprises. Did Paul have a secret life when he wasn’t behind the bar? The more the Agency digs into Paul’s past, the more plausible Dennis’ innocence appears to become. While the Agency partners are compelling enough, the real star of Last Call is the novel’s story structure. Tougaw tells the story in alternating chapters that flash back and forth between 2004 and 2024. While constant flashbacks are typically nothing more than an overused 20th century literary gimmick, Tougaw executes the technique perfectly in Last Call. The depth of Tougaw’s character development in both time periods, and the immediacy of the emotion evoked in each scene, are spot-on. What’s more, Tougaw’s instincts for what to reveal in each era – and how to echo those surprises across decades – are impeccable.
