Book Review: The Last Note of Warning | Katharine Schellman

An historical mystery set around a working class Irish woman in New York City during prohibition, Katharine Schellman’s The Last Note of Warning is an engaging and well-crafted story that hooked me until the last page.

What is The Last Note of Warning about?

Prohibition is a dangerous time to be a working-class woman in New York City, but Vivian Kelly has finally found some small measure of both stability and freedom. By day, she’s a respectable shop assistant, delivering luxurious dresses to the city’s wealthy and elite. At night, she joins the madcap revelry of New York’s underworld, serving illegal drinks and dancing into the morning at a secretive, back-alley speakeasy known as the Nightingale. She’s found, if not love, then something like it with her bootlegger sweetheart, Leo, even if she can’t quite forget the allure of the Nightingale’s sultry owner, Honor Huxley.

It’s not a safe life. Every day comes with the threat of poverty; every night could be the police raid that ends in disaster. But it’s a better life than Vivian once thought possible, and she’s determined to cling to it with both hands.

Then the husband of a wealthy client is discovered dead in his study, and Vivian was the last known person to see him alive. With the police and the press both eager to name a culprit in the high-profile case, she finds herself the primary murder suspect.

She can’t flee town without endangering the people she loves, but Vivian isn’t the sort of girl to go down without a fight. She can strike a deal with the police commissioner: one more week of freedom before she’s arrested for good. She can cash in every favor she has from the criminals she calls friends to prove she had no connection to the dead man.

But she can’t prove what isn’t true.

The more Vivian digs into the dead man’s life, counting down the hours until the police come for her, the harder it is to avoid the truth: someone she knows wanted him dead. And the best way to get away with murder is to set up a girl like Vivian to take the fall. (Synopsis from Goodreads)

What did I think?

The setting (New York City during prohibition) is one of my favorites for any historical fiction book. There’s something glamorous about those underground speakeasys with the jazz music and flirting. This was a time period where being working class didn’t necessarily mean you were excluded from the scene, and LGBTQ relationships were nothing to side eye in those smoky clubs.

Vivian Kelly works as a shop assistant in a dress shop, where she has a front row view of the luxuries that the wealthy elite can afford. By night, Vivian works serving drinks and dancing the night away in a deliciously illegal underground club known as the Nightingale. As the book opens, Vivian is dating bootlegger Leo and her sister Florence has recently married the bartender at the Nightingale and is pregnant with their first child. I hadn’t read the previous book but it seems that Vivian is also in a semi-love triangle with the owner of the Nightingale, Honor.

It isn’t the Nightingale that gets Vivian into hot water during this mystery, it’s a dress delivery that Vivian makes to the home of a wealthy client. When the client’s husband is found dead at home and it turns out Vivian was the last to see him alive, she becomes a prime suspect. Though there are other suspects, Vivian is working class and the victim was part of the wealthy high society, so the police commissioner finds her to be the simplest culprit.

Vivian negotiates a week to clear her name and turn up another suspect, but that isn’t her only problem. The more she looks into the dead man, the more convinced she becomes that she might know the real killer personally. And that person may have set Vivian up to take the fall for the crime. The pressure of the case strains her relationships with her sister, Leo, and Honor. Secrets begin to surface and Vivian may find herself left out of both of her love interests and sent straight to prison.

Since I hadn’t read the previous books, I was worried that I wouldn’t understand the dynamics between the characters, but that wasn’t a struggle at all. Pretty quickly I learned the good and the bad of her relationship with Leo (the bad being namely that he is related to the police commissioner accusing Vivian of the crime). I also loved Florence (Vivian’s sister) and her husband Danny (the bartender at the Nightingale). I can’t speak to whether their courtship was tortured in previous books, but in this book, they are a completely likable couple. Florence is the more measured sister, which made her the perfect supporting character to Vivian’s bold and slightly dangerous approach to life.

Through a delightful and gripping mystery, there is an interesting undercurrent of classism that is explored just the right amount. Schellman doesn’t hit the reader over the head with it, but the point is impossible to miss. Vivian was the only non-status person present in the house of a wealthy murder victim, so she becomes the prime suspect whether it makes sense or not. As everyone that Vivian thought she could trust begins to question her, Vivian sees that they may not come through for her in her time of need. Who will pull through for Vivian? You’ll have to read to find out!

Vivian is a great character and a lot of fun to read about. Florence was a nice balance and there are some tender moments between the sisters that delivered the heart in this book. Meanwhile Vivian’s love life is anything but settled. Some relationships fall apart, others come together, but in the end it’s possible none of them are right for her. Vivian is going through one of those life events that drops all pretense and starkly bares her relationships for her. Some people that she thought were on her side fail her, but others come to her aid. It’s the type of moments that show Vivian who her real friends are.

A wonderful mystery for those new to Vivian and the Nightingale crew and fans of the series alike!

Thank you to Minotaur Books for my copy. Opinions are my own.