Book Review: Night Shift

Click to rate this book!
[Total: 1 Average: 5]

Author: Charlaine Harris
ISBN: 978-0-575-09293-8
RRP: $32.99

Night Shift is the closing chapter of the latest Charlaine Harris series and a book I really enjoyed. I think part of what I loved about this book is that it’s a trilogy and brought the series to a close on a high note. I’m a fan of Harris’s work and I loved the Sookie Stackhouse series, for the first half dozen or so books and then the series seemed to get a little far fetched even for the series so to see this succinct series finish on a high was quite a bonus. Having said that, I do think there’s maybe still another story or two left in Midnight, Texas.

The series started with Midnight Crossroad about the strange small town of Midnight which is built upon a crossroad and is the home of many different characters, all of them far from mainstream and used to being outcast but happy to have found somewhere they feel they belong. Day Shift continues the stories of this quirky cast of characters and sets the scene for Night Shift.

Midnight is a totally stand alone series that happens to share a couple of crossover characters so it’s always interesting to see who is going to pop up on the page next.

The town is built on a crossroad and there are all sorts of myths and legends about crossroads and their significance to the supernatural world. This trilogy has spent time talking about the significance of the Midnight crossroad though never really come to any conclusions, well in Night Shift this is amped up rapidly when people start coming to Midnight just to commit suicide, right at the crossroad.

Lemuel is determined to discover why the blood is being spilled and he is sure that the answer lies in the mysterious texts discovered in the pawnshop that he is tirelessly translating. They are written in an ancient language only spoken by a couple of vampires and it makes the translation quite a lengthy and bothersome process.

night shift

Alongside the significance of the texts and the gruesome bloodshed at the crossroad we also meet the new resident in town, which is revelationary in itself, and learn a lot more about our other residents.

The Reed family have always been a bit of a mystery, they’ve been around a couple of years but they’ve always kind of been on the outer edges of the Midnight community. Everyone knows them and they are familiar faces but no-one really knows much about them, that starts to change in Night Shift.

I was hoping that at the end of the trilogy all of the loose ends would be tied up and all of the niggling strange questions would be answered but that was not the case. There is still a lot we don’t know about the strange and supernatural little town of Midnight and now it seems those answers are lost to us forever.

The pacing in Night Shift was quite good, there was always something going on and it wasn’t always the huge issues relating to the crossroad. Fiji found the strength to stand up and decide not to keep putting her heart on the line, though it almost hurts her more than always hoping that something will happen.

The focus of Night Shift is on the crossroad and the trouble brewing but there are also hints of romance and quandaries of the heart. There is sacrifice, ritual and history along with an amusing dose of humour and a talking cat.

Night Shift is available now through Hachette, Angus & Robertson Bookworld, Booktopia and where all good books are sold.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *