The Night Shift

56 pages • 1 hour read

The Night Shift

Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2022

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Summary

Background

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Prologue-Part 1, Chapter 13

Part 1, Chapter 14-Part 2, Chapter 28

Part 2, Chapters 29-43

Part 2, Chapter 44-Part 3, Chapter 58

Part 3, Chapter 59-Epilogue

Character Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

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Discussion Questions

Prologue-Part 1, Chapter 13Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Part 1: “Day 1: 15 Years Later”

Prologue Summary

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

An epigraph from Ernest Hemingway’s A Farewell to Arms opens the novel. It reads, “The world breaks everyone and afterward many are strong at the broken places” (vii). The prologue is set in Linden, New Jersey on New Year’s Eve, 1999. Four employees of a Blockbuster Video store are closing up for the night. Steve, the manager, is just a few years older than his four high school employees, Mandy, Candy, Katie, and Ella. Steve finds the back door open and notices one of the girls lying dead. Someone slashes Steve’s neck from behind. He hears screaming as he dies.

Part 1, Chapter 1 Summary: “Ella”

In the spring of 2015, Ella Monroe still struggles with the psychological weight of being the only survivor of the Blockbuster murders. She is now a therapist who is over-reliant on Xanax and who regularly cheats on her fiancée with strange men that she meets in hotel bars. After one such tryst, she receives a call from Mr. Steadman, her former teacher, who is now the high school principal. He says that four girls were attacked in another mass killing. He asks Ella to talk to the only survivor.

Part 1, Chapter 2 Summary

As Ella enters the hospital and sees Mr. Steadman talking to a group of police officers, she is forced to relive the aftermath of the Blockbuster murders. She learns that the latest killings occurred at an ice cream shop called The Dairy Creamery, where three teenage employees were found murdered in the back room. The survivor, Jesse Duvall, did not work there; she is a high school student in foster care.

Part 1, Chapter 3 Summary: “Keller”

FBI Junior Agent Sarah Keller is eight months pregnant with twins. Her husband of five years, Bob, is supportive, but he worries about her safety in the field. Now, Keller’s boss texts her about the triple homicide at the Creamery and asks her to assist with the case.

Part 1, Chapter 4 Summary: “Ella”

In the hospital, Jesse refuses to talk to the police or to let anyone examine her. She only begins opening up to Ella after Ella explains why she understands what Jesse is going through. Jesse says that she wasn’t at the Creamery to buy ice cream, just to use the bathroom. When she exited the bathroom, she was hit on the head. Before she lost consciousness, the killer whispered: “Good night, pretty girl” (17). The Blockbuster killer whispered the same words to Ella 15 years ago.

Part 1, Chapter 5 Summary: “Chris”

Chris Ford, a public defender for Union County, primarily represents clients who have drug charges. Now, he reads about the murders of Creamery manager Beth Ann Hughes and two employees who remain unnamed due to their status as minors. Chris thinks about his older brother Vince and their abusive father, whose violence drove their mother away. Chris was 12 when Vince was arrested for the Blockbuster murders. Afterward, Chris was adopted by Ms. May and Clint, who gave him a better life.

Part 1, Chapter 6 Summary: “Keller”

Agent Keller meets with the county prosecutor, Hal Kowalski. He asks her to rule out Vince Whitaker as a suspect in the Creamery killings. Vince disappeared 15 years ago after being released from jail for insufficient probable cause, and he was never found. Hal assigns a rookie detective named Atticus Singh to work with Keller.

Part 1, Chapter 7 Summary: “Ella”

Ella remembers her first day working at Blockbuster, watching Candy cut the shirt of her uniform to create a plunging neckline. The memory triggers her trichotillomania, a hair-pulling compulsion that she developed after the tragedy. In an attempt to process the trauma, she saw several specialists, but she soon realized that none of them could really understand her. As an adult, she became a therapist in order to use her experience to help other victims of trauma.

Part 1, Chapter 8 Summary: “Keller”

Rookie detective Atticus Singh has been assigned to work with Keller because his interest in the Blockbuster cold case has made him the office expert on the topic. He informs Keller that 18-year-old Vince’s car was seen in the Blockbuster parking lot on the night of the murders, and his fingerprint was found in the break room. Right after Vince disappeared, authorities found the murder weapon, a chef’s knife, in Vince’s school locker.

Now, Keller and Atticus visit the Creamery, where lead detective Joe Arpeggio reviews the crime scene with them. They learn that the victims in this recent murder went to the same high school that Vince attended.

Part 1, Chapter 9 Summary: “Ella”

Ella’s fiancé comes home early from a conference and finds evidence that she cheated on him the night before, so he breaks up with her. Ella did not really want to move in with him or get engaged, and she is relieved the relationship is ending.

Part 1, Chapter 10 Summary: “Keller”

At Union High, Keller talks to Principal Dale Steadman about two of the victims, sisters Madison and Hannah Sawyer. Notes of gratitude in Steadman’s office show that he is popular with students. Steadman recently fired a new custodian, Randy Butler, after learning of the man’s prior conviction for lewd conduct with a minor, but he says that Randy seemed to understand his decision. Jesse transferred to the school this year after an alleged incident at another high school. Steadman was not told the nature of the incident due to confidentiality rules. Steadman also says that Vince had a bad reputation in his day.

Part 1, Chapter 11 Summary: “Chris”

Chris once saw something noble in being a public defender, but now he merely goes through the motions at work. He spends a great deal of time watching videos posted by an anonymous travel vlogger who goes by the name of Mr. Nirvana. Chris thinks that Mr. Nirvana might be Vince, whom he has not seen or heard from in 15 years.

Part 1, Chapter 12 Summary: “Ella”

Ella meets with Jesse at a coffee shop to talk. Jesse says that she wants to be a journalist and is working on a true-crime story about the Blockbuster murders. She asks to interview Ella. Thanks to Facebook, Jesse also knows intimate details about Ella’s life, including Ella’s recent break-up with her fiancé.

Part 1, Chapter 13 Summary: “Keller”

Agent Keller and Atticus interview Vince’s father, Rusty Whitaker, at a strip club. Rusty says that he has not seen Vince since his son got out of jail 15 years ago, and he hopes never to see Vince again. Keller privately condemns Rusty for his attitude and believes that he is hiding something.

Prologue-Part 1, Chapter 13 Analysis

Author Alex Finlay’s writing style and narrative techniques are the most notable aspects of The Night Shift’s opening chapters. He structures the novel using dual timelines and multiple narrative perspectives in order to create a rapid pace that still manages to portray the thoughts, emotions, and motivations of the characters. While all mystery novels tend to employ elements of misdirection, Finlay handles this convention with subtlety by using an authentic style of dialogue. Specifically, the characters often leave their sentences unfinished, leading other characters— and perhaps the reader—to make assumptions about what has been left unsaid. This technique allows the author to complicate the mystery and misdirect suspicion without providing false information.

Additionally, subtle details of the narrative voice lend authenticity to Finlay’s character development. For example, he refers to Ella and Chris by their first name, but he calls Sarah by her last name, Keller, because this convention is more common in law enforcement. This mode of reference provides her character with an air of professionalism and competence that befits her status as an FBI agent. Additionally, Finlay’s strategic use of the third-person limited perspective only reveals the thoughts and knowledge of the character who is the focus of a particular chapter. The perspective can arguably be further defined as the hybrid known as deep or immersive third-person perspective, in which the narrative voice takes on a degree of intimacy typical of first-person narration, even though the third-person pronouns are maintained. In this case, the narrator’s voice takes on the views and attitudes of the character in question. For example, when Ella gives a bellhop an unimpressive tip, her action is followed by a distinctive voice that imitates the raw immediacy of a first-person narrative, stating, “Give her a break. She’s a therapist making $30K a year, for fuck’s sake, not some businessman on an expense account” (7). This deep perspective creates a more immersive glimpse into the character’s thoughts.

Several conflicts emerge in these chapters. The most apparent conflict is that of any murder mystery—to discover the identity of the killer. In The Night Shift, Finlay opts for the classic plot structure that pits law enforcement officers against the killer. Keller and Atticus’s search for the killer’s identity brings them into conflict with The Deceptive Nature of Public Personas, as many of the people they interview have their own secrets to hide. In addition to these standard elements of the crime genre, the narrative also incorporates psychological elements that add new layers of nuance, for Ella struggles to overcome her ongoing internal conflict. As the only survivor of a mass murder, she is still plagued by survivor’s guilt, an addiction to Xanax, compulsions to pull her hair out and to cheat on her fiancé, and intense memories of the violent event. Chris has a similar internal conflict with trauma, but his issues arise from the long-term damage caused by his abusive father’s violence, his mother’s apparent decision to abandon the family, and his brother’s disappearance. His unresolved trauma manifests as he finds himself consumed by apathy for a job that he once found noble. To further complicate matters, he also seeks to hide his identity in order to protect himself from association with a fugitive suspected of committing the town’s most brutal crime. Chris’s belief in Vince’s innocence, as well as his work as a public defender, creates a broader philosophical conflict against the concept of injustice.

Throughout the novel, Finlay delivers numerous observations pointing out the folly of making unfounded assumptions. Some comments critique the reliance on stereotypes, as when Chris observes that “many pimps aren’t fur-jacket-wearing clichés, but domineering spouses in abusive relationships” (51). Other such comments emphasize the truth of popular aphorisms, as when Ella’s therapy patients cause her to realize, “The meme is true: Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a battle you know nothing about” (56). Yet another observation about Ella’s fiancé, Brad, ironically reveals a clue about Mr. Steadman’s character. When Jesse points out Brad’s efforts to portray himself as ethical on social media, Ella labels this behavior as “virtue signaling” and explains that people who virtue-signal “are much more likely to have what they call the ‘dark triad’ of personality traits—Machiavellianism, narcissism, and psychopathy” (59). Significantly, this behavior model can easily be applied to Mr. Steadman’s character, for he is always supportive of his students, enjoys the admiration of their parents, and never says harsher words than “for goodness’s sake” (11).