The Night Shift, an intense thriller by Alex Finlay, begins on New Year's Eve in 1999 at a Blockbuster Video in Linden, N.J. While the store shuts down for the night, its manager--Steve, barely out of his teens--ponders his evening plans and vaguely wonders whether any of the concerns about Y2K will become a reality. But the potential digital catastrophe is the least of his worries, because by the end of his shift, he and three other store employees will be murdered. Only one employee, Ella, a teenage girl, survives.
Fifteen years later, FBI agent Sarah Keller (also featured in Finlay's Every Last Fear) is assigned to help Linden law enforcement with a chilling case: three people were found slaughtered in an ice cream shop. There is one survivor, a teenage girl. The similarities to the Blockbuster killings are too obvious to ignore. The suspect of the earlier case is still at large, causing those who are trying to solve the recent mystery to wonder whether the mass murderer is back.
Finlay grabs readers' attention in a shocking and breathtaking way: the nostalgia-imbued prologue depicts a group of young people on the cusp of a new millennium and perhaps brighter futures. But all of that is ripped away in an instant. Night Shift unfolds from the perspectives of Ella, Keller and Chris (who's connected to both murder cases); each point of view is compelling in its own way. The story flies at rocket speed, but the devastating punch it packs is due to the affecting characters. --Elyse Dinh-McCrillis, reviewer and freelance editor at The Edit Ninja