Author JD Seamus' working knowledge of retail finance, e-commerce, and venture capital was something he drew upon to create his character, Nathan Melton, in his debut novel, Last Call. Melton is new to Manhattan and has trouble meeting other people, but he soon finds a lovely woman companion and lots of friends at Jimmie Collins' bar, just around the corner from his apartment. His first appearance there, though, is unusual and marks the patrons and Melton's experiences with them as out of the ordinary; he slugs a local police officer in a bar altercation. Soon, Melton becomes one of the regulars, who are a motley bunch, ranging from career women to cops to customers with Mafia connections, including Jimmie himself. When Jimmie finally tells his friends he has terminal cancer, the gang rallies to help Jimmie's wife, who is dying of MS, and his grown daughter, who is developmentally disabled. They draft a plan to find Jimmie's millions hidden in offshore accounts that have sudden gone missing.

Last Call is a mix of dark humor, wit, and courage. The characters are deftly drawn with honesty in details that reveal these people as human and often hobbled by their own flaws. But their love of Jimmie brings out the best in them, despite even their distrust and dislike of each other at times. This book is cleverly written, often feeling like a merge of  Cheers and The Sopranos. The closing chapters, especially, could have been pulled directly from one of the successful-in-spite-of-themselves whack jobs by Tony Soprano and his crew. But it wouldn't have worked if JD Seamus hadn't painted his characters so well!

Seamus is busy at work on The Price of Retribution, a sequel to Last Call. Readers will want to grab that one when it comes out.