The Night Shift

The Night Shift (2022) is the second crime fiction novel written under the pen name Alex Finlay. The author is a lawyer working in Washington, DC who adopted a pseudonym to keep his writing career separate from his legal career. Told through three characters’ viewpoints, The Night Shift focuses on two similar mass murders that occur 15 years apart in the same town. As the protagonists’ lives converge, they must contend with the effects of abuse and personal trauma as they deal with a dangerous criminal and search for the elusive connection between the two separate massacres.

The Night Shift was a 2022 Goodreads Choice nominee for Best Mystery and Thriller. Along with Finlay’s debut novel, Every Last Fear (2021), The Night Shift has been optioned by ACE Entertainment for a major series featuring FBI Agent Sarah Keller.

Other work by this author includes the novel, If Something Happens to Me.

This guide is based on the e-book edition of the text published in 2022 by St. Martin’s Press.

Content Warning: Both the source text and this guide contain descriptions of physical, sexual, and emotional abuse and other violence, as well as references to suicide and the sexual exploitation of minors.

Plot Summary

On New Year’s Eve, 1999 in Linden, New Jersey, an unknown killer attacks five teenagers working the night shift at Blockbuster Video. Four die, but Ella Monroe survives. Fifteen years later, she is still living with the aftermath of this traumatic event. As a therapist, she is devoted to helping other trauma victims to heal, but her personal life is being held together by a thread. Then, Ella learns that another mass murder has occurred at an ice cream shop in Linden. Three teens working the night shift died, and one girl survived. Dale Steadman, the principal of Ella’s high school, who has been a source of support for Ella since the Blockbuster tragedy, asks her to meet with the survivor, a junior named Jesse Duvall. They meet in the hospital, where Jesse confides to Ella that the killer whispered, “Good night, pretty girl” (17) before she lost consciousness. The Blockbuster killer said the same thing to Ella, but she never told anyone about this detail.

FBI Agent Sarah Keller, who is eight months pregnant with twins, joins the investigation alongside local police. Atticus Singh, a rookie detective with a thorough knowledge of the Blockbuster case, is assigned to work with her. They are charged with ruling out the suspect in the Blockbuster case, given the similar nature of the new crime. Vince Whitaker was arrested 15 years ago but was released from jail on a technicality. He disappeared just before the murder weapon turned up in his school locker, and he has been a fugitive ever since. Now, Keller and Atticus interview Mr. Steadman about the recent victims, sisters Madison and Hannah Sawyer. They were students at his school, along with Jesse. He also tells them that Jesse transferred from another school due to an undisclosed incident. Next, they interview Rusty Whitaker, Vince’s father. They decide that he is inherently unscrupulous and is clearly hiding something.

Chris Ford works as a public defender and primarily represents clients with drug charges. Chris is Vince Whitaker’s younger brother. He and Vince grew up with an extremely abusive father, and after Vince disappeared, a loving couple adopted Chris. He changed his name, hoping to renounce his connection with the past. Now apathetic toward a job he once thought noble, Chris spends his time watching videos posted by the anonymous travel vlogger, Mr. Nirvana. He suspects that Mr. Nirvana is actually Vince.

Ella meets with Jesse again after the girl is discharged from the hospital. Jesse reveals that she has been researching the Blockbuster murders, and she knows a lot more about Ella’s personal life than she should. Despite the misgivings this triggers, Ella helps Jesse when the girl is caught shoplifting at Target that night. Jesse admits that she lied to the police about why she was at the ice cream shop on the night of the murders. She went there to confront Madison, who had been spreading malicious gossip about her.

On the second day after the murders, Agent Keller agrees to work with the Secret Service to arrest Rusty Whitaker for his role in a counterfeit cigarette ring. Keller plans to use the arrest as leverage to gain information on Vince’s whereabouts. In the meantime, Keller and Atticus interview two other parents of the Blockbuster victims and the now-retired lead investigator, who appears to have ignored discrepancies in the evidence against Vince. He tells them that Vince had been dating Katie, one of the victims, and that she had had a pregnancy “taken care of” (139) prior to her murder.

A flashback reveals that Ella had been in love with Vince before the Blockbuster murders changed everything. Now, she meets with Mr. Steadman to learn more about Jesse. He says that the incident at Jesse’s former school may have involved a teacher. Ella soon learns that an English teacher named Chad Parke was fired from that school last year, but when she confronts him, he swears that he never had an inappropriate relationship with Jesse. Instead, he states that she was obsessed with him and set him up when he rejected her.

Meanwhile, detectives arrest a teen girl in connection with the Creamery murders, and Chris volunteers to be on her defense team. He learns that the girl is Jesse Duvall. Jesse tells her defense team that she will only talk to Ella. She also reveals to Chris that she knows his real identity. Ella gives the defense team a potential piece of evidence that she found in her car: Jesse’s cell phone. Jesse claims that the phone contains evidence that Vince may have been innocent of the Blockbuster massacre. She also says that Chad Parke manipulated her, drugged her, and took photos of her lying naked in his bed. Madison told everyone that Jessie had seduced him and made a porn video with him. Finally, Jesse reveals that she was the baby that Katie, one of the Blockbuster victims, gave up for adoption before being killed.

Chris learns Mr. Nirvana is now in New York, challenging his viewers to find him. Chris is looking for Mr. Nirvana in an abandoned shipyard when a boy robs him and knocks him unconscious.

Meanwhile, Keller and Atticus raid Rusty Whitaker’s storage facility and unexpectedly find a decomposing body hidden in a toxic waste drum. The body belongs to Mary Whitaker, Chris’s mother, whom he always believed had abandoned the family when he was a child. Keller, having learned that Chris is Rusty’s son, visits him in the hospital to tell him the news of Mary’s demise. He is devastated but also relieved to learn that his mother never abandoned him after all. From jail, Rusty tries to get a plea bargain in exchange for information about Vince, but Keller realizes that there is another way to get the information.

Chris runs into Ella in a bar and talks to her about his belief that Vince is innocent. She accompanies him to Central Park, where Mr. Nirvana is live-streaming, to confront him. They find Mr. Nirvana and realize that he is not Vince. Meanwhile, Keller learns that after Vince got out of jail, the fathers of the Blockbuster victims abducted him and killed him. Police find Vince’s body buried in the garden belonging to Ella’s father.

As Ella tries to process what her father did, she decides to question Mr. Steadman about it. She drives to his home with Chris, who waits in the car. At the door, Ella witnesses Mr. Steadman stabbing another man, and he then pulls her inside the house before she can run. Meanwhile, Keller cannot get in touch with Atticus. She looks through the Blockbuster case evidence on his desk and realizes that Mr. Steadman was involved. Keller races to Mr. Steadman’s home, not waiting for back-up in her fear that Atticus is in immediate danger. She finds Ella tied up in the garage and frees her. As Keller enters the house, Mr. Steadman shoots her in the chest with an arrow. The house is plunged into darkness, and she has to fight for her life. She only survives with the help of Chris (who has been stabbed and badly wounded) and Ella (who returns after summoning help). Keller kills Mr. Steadman and is carried out on a stretcher, not knowing if Chris, Ella, or Atticus is still alive.

One year later, Keller and her twin babies are alive and well. She has named them in honor of Atticus, who did not survive Mr. Steadman’s attack. Jesse, now exonerated, has written an article about the Blockbuster case, and her work has been published in the New Yorker and has led to an interview on Good Morning America. Other victims of Chad Parke have come forward upon hearing her story, and he is arrested. Chris and Ella team up to see the world and create their own travel vlog.