The Night Shift by Alex Finlay #bookreview #thriller

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Title: The Night Shift

Author: Alex Finlay

Publisher:   Minotaur Books

Publication Date: March 1, 2022

Page Count: 312

My rating: 5 stars

About the book:

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.

The Night Shift by Alex Finlay is a thriller novel. The story in The Night Shift is one that is told by changing the point of view between the characters with three central voices to the story, a survivor to a past event, the brother of the suspect of the past event and an FBI agent.

On the night of Y2K, New Year’s Eve 1999, the Blockbuster Video in Linden, New Jersey was just about to close up when the manager and four teenage girls working that night shift were attacked. There was only one survivor that night, Ella, who goes onto become a therapist.

Fifteen years after that horrific night another attack takes place at a local ice cream shop. Again there is only one survivor after the attack, a teenager named Jessica. Ella is called in to connect to the surviving victim having a perspective no one else would understand and FBI Agent Keller begins to investigate any connection to the previous crime.

After reading Every Last Fear by Alex Finlay and really enjoying it I was excited to pick up The Night Shift and thankfully it did not disappoint at all. It may have helped the story to being with a night that many who were alive during Y2K can distinctly remember as that pulled me right into the book and didn’t let go centering around those events. The characters were great with all having their own flaws but distinct personalities that I enjoyed and boy the twists and turns just kept a coming all along the way. Definitely an author that I will come back to time and again after thouroughly enjoying both novels I’ve read.

I received an advance copy from the publisher via NetGalley.

Find this book online:

Goodreads  /   Amazon

About the author:

Alex Finlay is the pseudonym of an author who lives in Washington, D.C. His 2021 breakout thriller, EVERY LAST FEAR, was an Indie Next pick, a LibraryReads selection, an Amazon Editor’s Best Thriller, as well as a CNN, Newsweek, E!, BuzzFeed, Business Week, Goodreads, Parade, PopSugar, and Reader’s Digest best or most anticipated thriller of the year. Alex’s work has been translated into more than a dozen languages and optioned for film and television. Learn more at https://alexfinlaybooks.com/