She’s the only survivor of the horrific tragedy, and the man police suspect is responsible for the crimes soon flees town and is never seen or heard from again. An unseen killer breaks in and viciously stabs all of them to death except for one: Elle. Now for the story - it begins on New Year’s Eve 1999 at a Blockbuster (RIP) in Linden, New Jersey, where four teenage girls and their older manager, Steve, are working the night shift. (A book capable of distracting me from using enough SPF? C’mon, you know it’s good.) I know this phrase has been used to death, but this really is “compulsively readable” - I swear!!! - and had me tearing through chapter after chapter in one sitting while my shoulders got sunburned at the pool. But it’s excellently plotted with pulse-pounding twists that don’t feel forced or out of the left field’s left field (for the most part).

It’s a thriller designed to shock and awe, so of course there are some occasionally eye-roll-worthy moments.

So, I approached Alex Finlay’s The Night Shift, which also mines ‘final girl’ territory, with a solid helping of trepidation. An excellent concept for sure, but the stilted writing and its flat-out absurd (and at times, problematic) conclusion left a really sour taste in my mouth.

after the credits roll and the serial killer is unmasked and/or locked up and/or pushed out of a sixth story window and yet still survives and/or. the sole (female) survivor of a massacre in the style of Hellraiser’s Kirsty Cotton, Scream’s Sidney Prescott, I Know What You Did Last Summer’s Julie James, etc. The clunky, hokey horror-thriller promised a look at life for a ‘final girl’ - i.e. I can’t recall being as disappointed by a book as I was by Riley Sager’s debut, Final Girls.

The Night Shift by Alex Finlay