The Night Shift by Alex Finlay

Genre: Mystery, Thriller

Publication Date: March 1, 2022

Rating: 4 deadly stars!

Quote that sums up the book: “The sheep spends its life worried about the wolf, only to be eaten by the farmer.”

Goodreads Blurb:
It’s New Year’s Eve 1999. Y2K is expected to end in chaos: planes falling from the sky, elevators plunging to earth, world markets collapsing. A digital apocalypse. None of that happens. But at a Blockbuster Video in Linden, New Jersey, four teenage girls working the night shift are attacked. Only one survives. Police quickly identify a suspect who flees and is never seen again.

Fifteen years later, in the same town, four teenage employees working late at an ice cream store are attacked, and again only one makes it out alive.

Both surviving victims recall the killer speaking only a few final words… “Goodnight, pretty girl.”

In the aftermath, three lives intersect: the survivor of the Blockbuster massacre who’s forced to relive her tragedy; the brother of the original suspect, who’s convinced the police have it wrong; and the FBI agent, who’s determined to solve both cases. On a collision course toward the truth, all three lives will forever be changed, and not everyone will make it out alive.

Twisty, poignant, and redemptive, The Night Shift is a story about the legacy of trauma and how the broken can come out on the other side, and it solidifies Alex Finlay as one of the new leading voices in the world of thrillers.

Review:
I’m not a big mystery/thriller reader unless it has a romance perspective, but this book was super good!

I received this ARC an embarrassingly long time ago, and promptly forgot about it as it is a physical book (my kindle is just such a sexy little siren! Really, she’s very distracting…). However, this is a must read for anyone who likes murder mysteries, thrillers, great writing, and plot twists. I will definitely be looking into more books by Alex Finlay.

***Given the murder mystery component of this book, I will keep my review pretty surface-level to avoid spoilers***

What I liked about the book:
1. I liked that is had short chapters that were intriguing and kept me wanting to read more. My pages read added up so quickly without me noticing.

I also loved the 3 different viewpoints throughout the story. I felt each one definitely had their own style, so I could easily tell whose chapter I was reading. I also loved how interconnected their stories/cases became and how we got to watch them all piece together.

2. I liked that while I could guess some things, there were quite a few things I didn’t anticipate or see coming until later in the book. It made my imagination run wild with possibilities and kept me hanging on the words of the author.

3. I loved the “Serial” vibes this gave off. Something about high school murder stories where it’s debatable they got the right guy always reminds me of Adnan Syed, which also happened in 1999…

4. I loved the Y2K/Blockbuster flashbacks. As Blockbuster was my Friday night go-to with my family in the 90s, I absolutely loved this bit of nostalgia the book gave me!

5. I loved the final scene where everyone was fighting together against the killer. I felt it was a great culminating scene that really finished the book with a BANG.

6. Overall, I enjoyed most of the characters.

Keller – you were one badass mamma!

Chris – I wanted to hug you through the night, stroking your hair whispering that everything would be ok.

Vince – I loved seeing your sweet moments. I have a feeling you were a giant teddy bear.

Atticus – You were truly a cool kid and definitely a source of humor in this murder mystery.

Bob (Keller’s husband) – you are the best husband ever! You are always there for Keller, always getting up and making her food or talking with her at 3am when she can’t sleep, you always send her GIFs of how she is a badass, and you never care that you are filling the domestic sphere role in your relationship. Hats off to you, good sir!

What could have been better:
1. It made no sense how much Jesse knew about people, when even the police couldn’t dig up that information. This wasn’t really explained either.

2. While Keller was easily my favorite character in the book, it made no sense that a woman 38-weeks pregnant with twins (which usually doesn’t happen anyways as most twins are delivered earlier than that) would be running around solving murders in the thick of it when she could pop any minute. At times, I found the unrealistic nature of this deterring from an otherwise engaging story.

3. I felt we were supposed to sympathize most with Jesse and Ella, but I found both of them to be really unlikable. Obviously, these women have been through some tough stuff, but I just couldn’t come around on either of them, even as the story progressed, given some of their self-destructive tendencies. If Jesse had offered more of her vulnerable self, at least to Ella, and Ella hadn’t done the one thing I can’t forgive people for, this would have been a different case for them.

4. While we got a lot of details about somewhat trivial things, whole action scenes were glossed over or happened off page. I wish we could have had a bit more insight into these scenes and a little less insight into some of the things that didn’t matter.

5. I wanted to see more of Vince and Ella’s relationship. It seemed very abrupt towards the end when Ella had that revelation.

Special thank you to Minotaur Books and Alex Finlay for the opportunity to read this book for free. I am voluntarily leaving my honest review.