It’s the winter of 1975 and Duane Minor is back from a tour of duty in Vietnam. He spends his nights tending the bar of The Last Call, a hole in the wall joint owned by his in-laws on the outskirts of Portland, Oregon. During the day, he lives above the bar with his wife Heidi and their thirteen year old niece, Julia. Things have been OK for the most part, but that all changes when his mother-in-law cuts a deal with a local motorcycle gang to move drugs through The Last Call in exchange for the promise of support for her ailing husband.

Duane objects to this business development and when he crosses the leader of the gang, all hell breaks loose.

This is a true balls-to-the-wall horror story. I loved the choice of using a grittier time like the mid-70s for a setting. I can imagine getting to play in the past is a bit more freeing for an author when you can eliminate stuff like smartphones, constant connections and GPS. Rosson rachets up the gore and violence to an eleven, which I feel is essential when you want to tell a solid vampire story. You also have a country on edge, grappling with the results of a civil rights movement from the 60s coupled with veterans returning to a country that would rather forget the decades-long war than welcoming them with open arms.

Until recently, I’ve always been a non-fiction only guy when it comes to audiobooks, but after taking in the John Jackson Miller BATMAN books from 2024 & 2025, I’ve branched out into fiction. Pete Cross is the narrator for this one and he did a phenomenal job. Pete chose a more subtle approach when shifting between characters. Nothing against narrators offering a starker contrast between voices (sometimes it’s necessary), but I thought this fit the novel’s motif better.

This is my first Keith Rosson novel, but I will certainly be back for more.