Enter a darkly glamorous speakeasy where

music, liquor, and secrets flow...

Cover of Last Dance Before Dawn Nightingale Mystery 4 by Katharine Schellman
Last Dance before Dawn is the final book in the luscious, mysterious, and queer Nightingale mystery series by Katharine Schellman, set in 1920s New York.

Vivian Kelly has finally created a home and a family at the glamorous speakeasy known as The Nightingale, where no one cares who you are in the daytime. After all, in the underground world of 1920s New York City, everyone has a secret to keep, and they’re on the Nightingale’s dance floor to leave those secrets behind. But sometimes it takes more than a dance to escape your past.

When a stranger from Chicago shows up at The Nightingale looking to settle old scores, Vivian and the Nightingale’s owner, the mysterious and alluring Honor Huxley, send him packing. They soon discover, though, that the stranger was just a warning. Slowly, the people who have made The Nightingale their home realize that someone is following them. Hunting them. And that someone won’t stop until they unravel a mystery that’s been cold for years: a missing girl, a boy out for revenge, and a truck full of cash that disappeared in a job gone horribly wrong.

Vivian just wants to protect the people she loves, and she’s willing to dig into the dirt of the past to make it happen. But some questions are safer left unanswered, and now that Vivian has built a family for herself, she has more to lose than ever before.

Coming June 17, 2025

About Katharine

Katharine Schellman is an award-winning author of historical crime fiction, including the Nightingale Mysteries and the Lily Adler Mysteries. Her novels, which reviewers have called “worthy of Rex Stout or Agatha Christie,” have been named one of Suspense Magazine’s Best Books of the Year, a Library Journal Best Crime Fiction of the Year, and a New York Times editor’s pick. Her work has been nominated for the Silver Falchion award from Killer Nashville and won the Zibby Media National Book Award for Best Book for the History Lover. A former actor, onetime political consultant, and graduate of William & Mary, Katharine lives and writes in the mountains of Virginia with her husband, children, and the many houseplants she keeps accidentally murdering.