The Night Shift

Alex Finlay’s 2022 novel The Night Shift is a dual-timeline thriller set in the New Jersey town of Linden. On New Year’s Eve 1999, four teenage employees at a Blockbuster Video are attacked; only one, Ella, survives, describing the killer as a man who asked, “Where is Vince?” before the assault. Fifteen years later, in 2015, a nearly identical massacre occurs at an ice cream shop, leaving another lone survivor, Jesse, and echoing the earlier crime’s chilling details. The narrative alternates between three perspectives. In 1999, FBI agent Sarah Keller, heavily pregnant and on what should be a desk assignment, investigates the Blockbuster murders. In 2015, public defender Chris Ford—whose girlfriend was among the original victims—becomes entangled when his client’s brother is suspected in the new killings. Ella, now a therapist, and Jesse, the new survivor, also narrate, linking past and present trauma. Finlay structures the book around parallel investigations across the two eras, with Sarah Keller’s pregnancy and professional pressure adding tension in the past timeline and Chris Ford’s conflicted loyalties driving the present one. The novel explores memory, survivor’s guilt, and small-town secrets as it probes whether the 1999 killer was ever truly caught or whether a copycat has emerged. The recurring question “Where is Vince?” serves as a connective thread between the two massacres, and the plot ultimately hinges on concealed identities and long-held deceptions rather than courtroom procedure or forensic science. Widely described as a fast-paced suspense novel, The Night Shift follows Finlay’s debut, Every Last Fear, and was praised for its twist-driven plotting and interwoven timelines.