The Night Shift: A Novel
From the author of the breakout thriller Every Last Fear, comes Alex Finlay's electrifying next novel The Night Shift, about a pair of small-town murders fifteen years apart--and the ties that bind them.
One of the Most Anticipated Books of 2022: - PopSugar - Goodreads - Book Riot - BookBub - The Nerd Daily - SheReads - Crime by the Book "The night was expected to bring tragedy." So begins one of the most highly-anticipated thrillers in recent years. 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 New Jersey, four teenagers working late at the store are attacked. Only one inexplicably survives. Police quickly identify a suspect, the boyfriend of one of the victims, who flees and is never seen again. Fifteen years later, more teenage employees are attacked at an ice cream store in the same town, and again only one makes it out alive. In the aftermath of the latest crime, three lives intersect: the lone survivor of the Blockbuster massacre who's forced to relive the horrors of her tragedy; the brother of the fugitive accused, who's convinced the police have the wrong suspect; and FBI agent Sarah Keller who must delve into the secrets of both nights--stirring up memories of teen love and lies--to uncover the truth about murders on the night shift. 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 Finlay as one of the new leading voices in the world of thrillers.BUY THE BOOK
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Community Reviews
DNF about halfway through. Not sure world these good ratings are coming from. This book is full of two-dimensional characters with cliche backgrounds and cliche personalities. Super boring people and way too many different POVs, including one in which they send us to the past to see a character as a child. We did not need that many POVs. Millions of books successfully tell a story with one or two max. This book got so confusing with all its back and forth that I just gave up. Not worth it.
3.5 stars!
I liked most of the characters in this book, which is often what makes a murder mystery for me, especially since all the plots are often fairly similar for the most part. The characters basically filled each trope of a murder mystery and yet were interesting enough to sustain my attention rather than being too trope-y (mostly, at least). I also really liked all the side characters, which seems to happen a lot in a variety of books. I actually might have liked most of the side characters more than the main ones.
I do wish that we'd gotten more information about what happened to Jessie. After the middle of the book, she sort of just drops off the face of the earth and shows up again at the very end. I wish I could have seen how she'd gotten from the middle to the end since I really liked her and thought she was cool lol even though she was a lot sometimes. I think this is an issue with mysteries a lot - side characters often end up dropped cause there's so many threads going on, and we only find out about them afterwards.
But anyway yes, typical fun murder mystery that I read in a couple days just to get myself back into the vibe of reading.
I liked most of the characters in this book, which is often what makes a murder mystery for me, especially since all the plots are often fairly similar for the most part. The characters basically filled each trope of a murder mystery and yet were interesting enough to sustain my attention rather than being too trope-y (mostly, at least). I also really liked all the side characters, which seems to happen a lot in a variety of books. I actually might have liked most of the side characters more than the main ones.
I do wish that we'd gotten more information about what happened to Jessie. After the middle of the book, she sort of just drops off the face of the earth and shows up again at the very end. I wish I could have seen how she'd gotten from the middle to the end since I really liked her and thought she was cool lol even though she was a lot sometimes. I think this is an issue with mysteries a lot - side characters often end up dropped cause there's so many threads going on, and we only find out about them afterwards.
But anyway yes, typical fun murder mystery that I read in a couple days just to get myself back into the vibe of reading.
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