I really enjoyed “The Night Shift”. There were a few twists in the execution that I hadn’t seen coming, which was a pleasant surprise. I found it was well paced and overall a very satisfying thriller. Would definitely recommend this novel to suspense fans and I hope to read another book from Finlay in the near future.
Thank you NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press for this ARC!
3.5/5 rounded up

The Night Shift is one of those thrillers that is hard to put down. Two murders, 15 years apart with lots of similarities including one lone female survivor. At first it was hard for me to keep straight two of the main female characters, and I thought it was pretty obvious who the murderer was, but that didn't keep me from turning the pages to the very end. I really enjoyed the 90's nostalgia and highly recommend this propulsive thriller!

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for an advanced copy to review.

The Night Shift is a fairly fast-paced detective thriller with short chapters. I was engaged throughout, but ultimately found myself to be a little disappointed. It ended up being a very straight-forward, procedural mystery that I don’t think will be be memorable for me.

I was so excited to pick this one up because the blurb promised a novel set in a NJ Blockbuster in the 1990s. I was expecting a nostalgic 90s read. But most of the book takes place after this, about 15 years later. A few references to towns in NJ, but barely any references to what it was like growing up in the 90s and searching the shelves of Blockbuster for a movie to watch. Overall this ended up being a middle of the road thriller.

4.5 stars!
New Years Eve, 1999. Y2K is on the horizon and the employees at the local Blockbuster are getting ready to close down for the night. The manager on shift is a young man and his employees are four girls who are in high school. They are all found murdered except for one survivor. Fast forward - 15 years later - and history repeats itself at the local ice cream shop. The murderer said the same thing to both survivors, meaning only one thing: the two cases are connected. An FBI agent, a local defence lawyer and the survivor from the first case become an integral part of solving what’s going on in Linden, New Jersey.

I looooooooooooved how atmospheric this novel was! The opening chapters had me thrown right back into my nostalgia, reminiscing on how fun it was to go to Blockbuster on a Friday night and pick out a movie. The multiple POVs were at times confusing, but kept the story fresh. I loved pretty much all of the characters, particularly Sarah and her husband Bob. Likeable characters always help me with wanting to finish a book. The twists were littered throughout with some nice red herrings sprinkled in. That being said, I did figure out who the killer was pretty early. However, I loved the rest of the book so much, I couldn’t stop turning the pages to see how it all played out.

You’ve gotta love a Mass murder mystery that you can’t figure out, even after thinking of every angle.
Finlay takes us round & round, down the rabbit hole of suspects, evidence and victims until the den of truth leaves you breathless.
Told from multiple character perspectives, the plot is laid out and executed, emotions run high, (and I’m also talking about the readers’!) as pieces come together and your heart crashes at some of the injustices that occur. Although I wasn’t crazy about some of the (rather unrealistic) events in the climax, this will not be my last Finlay novel.

I loved Finlay’s last novel “Every Last Fear” so I was super excited for this book and it didn’t disappoint !!!

Reading this book gave me a sense of nostalgia in a weird way. I always remember going to the video store every Friday night as a kid and picking out a movie (most likely a Mary-Kate and Ashley one)

“The Night Shift” was everything I love about a thriller! It was fast paced, full of twists and turns and I absolutely loved the storyline!

You will definitely want to check this one out, and it’s available now!

Thank you SO much @stmartinspress, @minotaur_books, and @alexfinlayauthor for the advanced copy!

The Night Shift by Alex Finlay is his second book. On New Year’s Eve 1999 someone attacks and kills four employees at a Blockbuster video store. The fifth victim, a teenager named Ella, survives. It is assumed a young man named Vince, who was rumored to have dated one of the murdered employees, was the killer. He was a small time drug dealer and was often in trouble. He gets arrested and is soon let go for insufficient evidence. He promptly disappears off the face of the earth.
Cut to 20 years later in the same town —three employees of an ice cream shop are murdered and there is one girl who survives .. Ella is now grown up and a therapist. She has been called in to help the surviving girl because she has gone through the same thing.
There are two other points of view in the story. One is Chris, he is Vince‘s younger brother and is now a public defender. He has always wondered what happened to his brother and thinks he might know where he is. The other character we follow is Sarah Keller, an almost nine months pregnant FBI agent who is assigned to help the local police with the ice cream shop murders. Her job is to figure out if it is connected to the previous murders from 1999.
This book was outstanding. It was very fast paced and I loved how the chapters alternated between characters and also between 1999 and present day for those characters. I grew to love each one of the three main characters and hated to finish the book. The mystery of what actually happened in 1999 and present day is slowly revealed as the book goes on. The suspense was nicely done by alternating the viewpoints. So far this has been one of my favorite books of 2022. I am so excited to read more books from this author! Thank you Net Galley and the publisher for the advanced copy of this book. All opinions are my own.

A good suspense/mystery/thriller, but I felt like Finlay's first novel, "Every Last Fear," was a stronger novel.

An engrossing and suspenseful read that kept me glued to the book all night. A violent murder at a Blockbuster Video and now, 15 years later, a similar crime in the same town. One survivor each time.

Ella, the survivor of the Blockbuster murder is now a therapist and is called to the hospital to talk to the victim and survivor of the most recent murder. Is this the same murderer or a copycat killer? A must read!

Fast paced, thought provoking .I thoroughly enjoyed this, tho I would have appreciated more backstory, and the ending felt a bit rushed.

Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC of this title. This was a quick and easy read that had some juicy twists and turns. It was well written, but nothing special. Just a good, solid, fast paced thriller.

So it turns out I read this last fall, but forgot to review it. I downloaded it again this week, started reading it and realized it seemed familiar.

I liked the characters and the premise, but found the solution to fall a little flat. I just think that the killer didn't quite make sense. Why would he kill everyone in an ice cream shop just because he was obsessed with one girl? And then he did it again 13 years later.

I read Alex Finlay's first book and found it to be similarly far-fetched. This one was better. The writing in the previous book wasn't very good so this is an improvement. And in that book, every choice the characters made was the more sensational, less realistic one, but again this book suffers from a lack of sense.

I'd like to draw a comparison between this book and 2 Nights in Lisbon, which is also kind of far-fetched, but somehow works. I'm not quite sure why, but the characters seem more clever. The backstory is tragic, but makes sense and the twist is exciting. Plus, I still remember it months later.

Alex Finlay's The Night Shift is a worthy successor to his debut Every Last Fear, one of my favorites of 2021. Told over three action-packed days, from multiple perspectives, The Night Shift follows the follow out of a triple murder at an ice cream shop. The case has eerie similarities to a case from a decade earlier. I read a lot of mysteries and even I was shocked by the twists in The Night Shift.

The Night Shift is the first book I've read by Alex Finlay. I used to read mostly mystery and thrillers, and lately I've gotten back my taste for them. Books like this, with all sorts of twists, turns and red herrings are a big reason for my return to the genre. And authors like the talented Alex Finlay shall surely keep me there!

New Year's Eve 1999 was being looked at with dread. Would planes fall from the sky? Would the world's financial markets collapse? Y2K ended up being tame, just like any other new year. Tame, that is, except for the teenagers working at Blockbuster Video that night in Linden, New Jersey. Four teenaged girls and a young man worked the night shift. By the time it was over, all would be murdered except one girl. A young man is identified as a suspect, but he ran and was never seen again. Fifteen years pass by, and in the same town working the night shift at an ice cream store four teenaged employees are brutally attacked. Once again, only one girl survives the slaughter. Both surviving girls hear the killer whisper, "Goodnight, pretty girl". After that killing, the lives of three people become interconnected: the Blockbuster survivor who is still dealing with the fallout from that night; the brother of the initial suspect who believes his sibling is innocent; and a pregnant FBI agent working on both cases. As they get closer to solving the cases, things start to get really messy. Who will make it out alive?

This is one of those thrillers that is actually thrilling! I don't come across those as often as I'd like. The story started off just a bit slow; it took me awhile to get used to changing viewpoints and time changes. But once I got rolling, I didn't want to stop until I figured out whodunit. You should have seen me at work, reading then shoving my Kindle into my bookbag every time I heard my boss coming my way! I just had to find out who the killer was. Alas, I had to wait until I got home. I kind of figured out who the killer was, but certain events had me questioning my judgment. There were some great characters here. Atticus Singh, FBI agent Sarah Keller's temporary partner, was a delight every time he was present. He was a smart young man who wanted to be an FBI agent, and was eager to help Keller. He could be endearingly geeky at time. FBI agent Keller, who was very heavily pregnant, could be quite a badass. She was also extremely likeable; I loved her relationship with her husband, and their time together brightened up the mostly intense story. My favorite character, however, was Chris, the brother of the young man believed to have committed the first murders. He had an abusive father, a mother who disappeared and a brother whom he loved who hadn't been seen since he became a suspect. Chris was taken from his home, adopted by a loving couple and became a public defender. Yet he still felt the need to find his bother, and believed he was living as a travel blogger. Some of the action here could give you whiplash as things changed so suddenly and you would have no idea what would happen next. I totally enjoyed this thrilling story and am quite anxious to see what Alex Finlay comes up with next!

I received an ARC of this book courtesy of the publisher and NetGalley. I received no compensation for my review, and all thoughts and opinions expressed are entirely my own.

4.5⭐ This book immediately hooked me and kept me hooked. I consistently found myself thinking "Okay, just one more chapter." The balance of POVs was superb. Sure, parts of it seemed a little predictable but overall, it was exactly what I had been craving and I devoured it.

The only thing keeping me from giving this book a 5⭐ rating is the ending. It felt very rushed and the epilogue kind of reached to wrap up all the lose ends. I would have been okay with a few more chapters to finish it up in a neater way but all in all, I really enjoyed this book!

Thank you so much to NetGalley and the publisher for the e-ARC.

New Year’s Eve 1999, and there is a violent murder of four teenage girls at a Blockbuster Video just after closing. One survivor. Cut to fifteen years later, and the same town experiences a parallel crime at ice cream shop-one survivor.
This book was unputdownable. I would have read it all in one sitting if I had started it over a weekend. The characters, the nineties nostalgia, the pacing-everything works. I really enjoyed the author’s debut, but this is the book that I would recommend between the two. A great mystery-thriller from start to finish.
Thanks to NetGalley and Minotaur Books for the ARC!

The Night Shift follows a few different people as they try and navigate their way to finding the killer. At first, the many POVs are confusing because you have absolutely no clue what these people bring to the story or why they are there. At the start of the novel, I got lost trying to remember all the different characters; they all had so many various stories and backgrounds. Slowly, throughout the novel, the author leaves these tiny details that just ended creating more and more questions. And there is nothing more satisfying than everything piecing together at the end. I will be patiently waiting for a paperback version of this to release so I can add it to my bookshelf.

A solid, addictive thriller about a mass murder at a Blockbuster with only one teenage survivor. A suspect was identified but fled and was never found. Now, fifteen years later in the same town, four teenagers working in an ice cream store are murdered and again only one teenager survives. Past and present collide. Highly recommend.

I wanted to love this, especially because it has a murder in the 90s and I loved his previous book. However, I felt like there wasn’t enough time spent in the 90s timeline. I also felt like there wasn’t enough going on. This one just wasn’t for me.

This was a nice surprise thanks to Minotaur Books. Full of suspense and entertaining. And takes place in the 90s, my favorite! I can't wait to see what Alex Finlay comes out with next!