Review on Midnight Texas #2 Day Shift

After Manfred Bernado’s client Rachel Goldthorpe suddenly dies right in front of him after the bodies of a couple are discovered in the same building, he becomes one of the main suspects to the cause of her death. To make matters worse, Rachel was extremely wealthy, and her son Lewis is convinced that Manfred stole the jewellery he believed she had been carrying round in her purse. But Manfred isn’t the only one in Midnight facing problems. A mysterious man shows up in town, leaving behind his son in the care of the Reverend Sheehan. Who is this boy, and why is he growing so fast? Manfred and the other residents of Midnight must help to clear Manfred’s name, along with finding out more about the mysterious child, and the reason behind the Midnight hotel opening it’s doors once more.

After reading Midnight Crossroad, I was eager to find out more about the interesting characters who resided in the small town of Midnight. Little is learnt about what each character’s secret is in the first book, and I was looking forward to finding out the motivations for them living in such a small town. i was not disappointed in that aspect, as plenty is revealed about certain characters, particularly Olivia, Joe, Chuy and The Rev. I loved how each character’s secret was revealed, and although it was obvious from the start that they all had their own personal secrets, I was surprised by what their secrets were when they were finally revealed.

As with the first book, I found Day Shift to be quite slow for about the first three quarters. The story revolves around Manfred being accused of murdering his client and stealing hew jewellery, with the notorious Lewis Goldthorpe accusing him of the crimes. Manfred is trying hard to clear his name with the help of fellow Midnight resident Olivia Charity by means of trying to prove he didn’t kill Rachel, and trying to locate the missing jewellery. Although they were some exciting action scenes such as Olivia attempting to break into the Goldthorpe house, I found it to be somewhat lacking for a novel firmly set in the supernatural genre.

The introduction of Diederik was interesting, as it was clear from the start that he was not a normal child, and I found myself eager to find out the reason why he was growing so fast. I made a few assumptions as the book went along, and as I am usually good at taking accurate guesses, I was pleasantly surprised when I found out that all my assumptions had been wrong. I loved this as there is a moment in the novel where it seems completely obvious what Diederik is, but everything is turned completely around towards the end of the novel.

I started to enjoy the novel a lot more once it came to the last quarter, as the pace picked up and I was eager to find out why the residents of Midnight were so worried about being outside after sunset. The climax was both shocking and exciting, and I think the book could have been improved by keeping the reader on their toes throughout the novel, as I found the legal business with Manfred’s lawyer and the sheriff constantly dropping by to be quite dull. 

I loved that some of the characters who I thought were underdeveloped in the first book were given more of a personality and a reason for being in the town, but I still felt that it needed to be expanded on, particularly in the cases of Joe and Chuy. I loved that their true nature had been subtly hinted at in the first book, as I had not picked up on it at all and at the time thought it had been setting the scene and had no significant meaning to the plot. Although i loved learning more about some of the characters, I was disappointed that Lemuel was absent for the majority of the novel, as i had initially found him to be really interesting and had thought that he would have had more of a storyline in Day Shift. I would love to hear more about Lemuel’s backstory, along with some other characters who I still feel I don’t know well enough. As this is the second book in the series, I feel as if i should know more about certain characters by this point than I do.

Although I did find the book tedious in some parts, and it took me longer to get through that it normally would due to my willingness to put the book down mid chapter, I did enjoy certain aspects of the story and felt that some of the sub plots would have been more interesting if they had been expanded on rather than the main focus being on Manfred being accused of stealing jewellery, which is quite a mundane storyline compared to Diderik’s. However I did enjoy this book more than Midnight Texas, and hope that it continues to improve.


Day Shift is now available to purchase in both physical and ebook formats.

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Be sure to check out Midnight Crossroad, the first book in the Midnight Texas series