Night Shift by Alex Finlay

 

Well, this is a crime novel that plays in the current idiom of "stupidly overplotted thriller," with a dash of "omnicompetent sociopath"--though there's a reasonable chance the omnicompetent sociopath is not the killer. (I'm not entirely sure I buy every single part of the "resolution" of this novel ...) The fact that in a novel full of unpleasant manipulative asshats the only real "onscreen" death is one of the really good characters does not improve my disposition, here. The story could plausibly not have been *horrible*, but the author couldn't resist throwing stupid twist after stupid twist: It's clear he didn't trust his story to go out into the world less adorned.