My thanks to Polly at Aries Fiction, a Head Of Zeus imprint, for the blog tour invite and my gifted review copy of Alex Finlay’s sophomore novel, ‘The Night Shift’, which is out now in e-book and hardcover formats.

This story kept me guessing. I think I started to figure it out really at the same time as the people investigating it. I had some inklings, but truth be told, I suspected everyone at one point or another.Mr. Finlay’s strengths are many; I love the time and place where this novel was set. The beginning brings a sense of deja vu for anyone old enough to remember the fear of Y2K and how the world was going to literally shut down, computers wouldn’t know how to update, etc etc. It really was quite a fierce buildup TO AN ABSOLUTELY NON-EVENT!!!! I felt a bit deceived as even reading the Goodreads excerpt after finishing the book seemed totally up my alley. And it isn’t wrong. All that stuff happens, but this is not your average mystery/thriller and in my opinion, this instance isn’t a good thing. We follow them as they start to reconnect and put together what is happening to them, all while on the run, trying to stay two steps ahead from their would-be killers. So, the story starts with a bunch of people all firing a gun into one corpse and thinking, "What have we done?!?"

This is a great story. Finley keeps the reader off balance by switching perspectives. It’s a fast paced book with some good twists. I had my suspicions early on about the killer. While sometimes that annoys me, here it just made me more anxious to get to the end and see if I was right (which I was). It wasn’t so much the who as the how that mattered here. Overall, while I did not dislike Alex Finlay's What Have We Done, I wasn’t quite bowled over by it. But I am eager to read more from Alex Finlay in the future. I really hope he gives us another book featuring FBI Special Agent Sarah Keller (from The Night Shift and Every Last Fear). Both of those books were realistic, suspenseful crime stories, where the hints, like breadcrumbs, and a smart female lead, FBI agent Sarah Keller, led you to a satisfying conclusion.

Now about 15 years later, there is another tragic murder. Same town, this time at the Dairy Creamery. Teenagers are brutally murdered with again a lone survivor. This one also took place during THE NIGHT SHIFT!! While reading this thriller, I could easily envision it as a TV show or crime drama. Some of the dialogue was very reminiscent of those popular crime shows. The closest Finlay came to a character that defied expectation on some level and felt a bit 'more than meets the eye' was in Jenna, and for a while, I thought I could sort of throw my attention into her story line and let that hold my interest. But after a while, her section of the story fell so far into action-movie territory that I had trouble not only believing it, but staying engrossed. This became a recurring theme: the plot itself was so straightforward in many respects, that I kept wondering why Finlay was telling us so much, so soon.

Jenna can’t help but think of that night twenty-five years ago, the rain coming down. Donnie speaking for them all: Five kids all made it out of a horrendous group-home as teenagers. Although severely scarred mentally from the experience they all became rather successful in their own fields of choice. I really appreciated Chris (lawyer) and Ella (survivor)'s POV the most, as I struggled on and off with Keller (FBI agent)'s voice and overall character. Keller is 8.5 months pregnant with twins, and it truly felt like someone who has no idea what pregnancy entails wrote this character. 🤣 Many women don't even make it that far in a multiples pregnancy, but to be running around like she is without so much as being winded or slowed down? It felt completely unrealistic, maybe because I myself am pregnant at the moment. The narrator on the audiobook for this character was also very abrupt and harsh in tone and pronunciations, so maybe that contributed as well. I heard What Have We Done is different from Finlay's other works. It was. I thought since I didn't love the previous two novels (rated 3 stars for both), this will be a winner for me. Wrong.

Summary

They, all in one way or another, relive their past, the troubling times, the secrets, the big secret, that they seem to think is the cause of their possible demise. There are some crazy people involved in this tale, including a bunch of assassins who once again are over the top. As mentioned above this is an ott book with ott as it secondary theme, but I liked it. Every so often, I enjoy the bizarre, the unreal, the no that can't possibly true books, that allow me to really escape into a place that just can't ever be. Alex Finlay’s writing HOOKS me instantly! I was immediately drawn in by the nostalgia and the well developed characters. For the past year/year and a half I’ve chosen to go in blind and not thoroughly read the excerpt of a book as sometimes they give too many details away. I would have read this regardless as it’s Alex Finlay and I was blown away by Every Last Fear and I even semi-enjoyed The Night Shift. This is by far my least favorite of his. I was NOT expecting some James Bond nonsense to unfold with this one. This was so OTT that my eyes hurt from rolling them so much.