Nightshift (Midnight Texas #3) by Charlaine Harris

People are committing suicide at the Midnight crossroads. Once is tragic, twice unlikely and three times definitely more than a coincidence

There’s a dark presence under the crossroads. It’s been there for centuries - but it’s waking up. The inhabitants only clue to what it is and what it wants is in a book that none of them can read. They’re running out of time and the dark voice Fiji hears is growing louder

Meanwhile Olivia’s family may have finally caught up with her - with lethal repercussions and increased suspicion about the true motives of her neighbours

I really do like the concept of Midnight - a small town in rural Texas where the supernatural gathers, where people with secrets gather to build their new life. Over the last few books this has developed further as the members of the community have grown closer together. And this is something Charlaine Harris has always been very very good at: building a community, building all those little social interactions, those visits and family histories and little gossips that gives a real sense of community

This does, in some cases, slow the pacing as various characters discuss their issues with each other, then discuss those issues with other characters and all pry into each other’s business - especially since we have a lot of characters all with their own back stories and issues (which I, again, really like). But it works here because the overall story of this small town is the community that has been built here. So I don’t mind that we spend what appears to be a truly unnecessary amount of time discussing Lemuel’s human life even though it adds absolutely nothing to the plot. Or that we have Manfred’s old cronies from Las Vegas living nearby. Or the time spent gossiping around tables discussing what Chuy and Joe are (which is not known for most of this book and these are somewhat peripheral characters - which is a little weird given what they’re facing). It works because that’s what these books are.

I do think Olivia’s story is a little…. Weirdly convoluted. But hey, it’s not completely out there so I can run with it.

At times it seems the characters are somewhat distracted from the main plot, largely waiting for Lemuel to translate a convenient book he’s found - convenient in that it has all the answers and plot convenient in that it’s written in a convoluted ancient language for no good reason (and, honestly it makes little sense and really is just a method of drawing out the main plot so they can focus on the smaller side plots and relations. But it works).

The plot itself does have those convenience issues and does sort of circle slowly towards the ending rather than run for it - and it has some weird road bumps with Olivia’s story kind of running mundanely across the main supernatural - there’s something dark and evil under the crossroads plot line.

Day Shift (Midnight #2) by Charlaine Harris

Mannfred thought he was attending a normal appointment with his client – until she died in the middle of his reading

Now he is accused of theft and who knows what else – legal problems which are all the more problematic with the media attention to this secretive, small town.

Attention they especially don’t need when they have a new guest staying with the Rev – a small child who is growing up at an incredible rate and definitely does not to be caught on camera

To add to the strangeness of new people to town – the old hotel has opened and something fishy is definitely going on

I like the subtlety of this world that is slowly growing as more and more members of this small town are shown to be supernaturally different in some ways. After the last book with a lot of subtle hints, this book doubles up on the hints but is also being less coy with some being more overtly labelled. I like how this is paced and working – there’s still a lot of mystery there but it’s natural mystery. There’s no attempt to drag it out, there’s no attempt to pretend we don’t know things when clearly we do and no attempt to hint around things we already know or should already know.

This aspect of the world building really works and creates this wonderful little town full of secrets and it’s really balanced thematically. We get this really strong sense of community, everyone knows everyone else, everyone looks out for each other, everyone cares for each other they often eat together and are very neighbourly. But at the same time, everyone also respects each other’s privacy; yes everyone knows they have secrets and everyone is equally determined not to pry into anyone else’s business. This manages to make the town both very close community and also more than a little creepy. The underlying secrecy and the things they’re not talking about underpins the whole book.

Midnight Crossroad (Midnight #1) by Charlaine Harris

Midnight is a quiet town like no other, in the middle of rural Texas, with few people passing through. It’s a quiet place, an insular place, a place where the few inhabitants have each other’s back – but keep their secrets to themselves.

Manfred is a new inhabitant to the town and quickly finds the secrets run deep and there is far more than he imagined. Some of these secrets become exposed when a body is found…

This book shows Charlaine Harris’s main strength from the very beginning. Charlaine Harris has a great talent for truly describing a place, really getting a sense of what the town of Midnight is like. But it’s not just the place, Charlaine is extremely good at describing a community and how they all relate to each other. Even really small or background characters are fit into the overall community and the characters that make up the location.

This especially works with this series because it is such a small community as well as the very nature of the community. It’s interesting to see how close and supportive everyone is of each other, while at the same time following Mightnight’s unwritten rules – complete acceptance and not asking any questions. It’s a town for the misfits and people who can’t find somewhere to fit in anywhere else and this is really well presented – not with everyone having to be freaky or weird or odd to stand out – but just this really subtle way everyone’s secrecy has been woven into the community to create a set of unwritten rules that no-one ever has to overtly say though they’re always clearly understood.

There is a problem with pacing. This is the first book in the series and there’s a lot of introduction and description including a lot that probably isn’t necessary. A lot of the earlier part of the book is taken up setting the scene with rather more excessive detail than is necessary that clogs things a little. Especially since it seems to be a while before anyone actually gets involved in any murder investigation (though I did like the moment when Manfred questioned why they’re investigating at all since none of them are police). This slows down the general mystery as well for some time – which is a minor element of dissatisfaction along with a completely unpredictable ending.

One thing the book has is a separatist, white supremist, racist, misogynist, homophobic group. The depiction is pretty good – they’re not soft peddled or excused, they’re a repulsive as you’d expect. But they’re repulsive without the need to turn them into outright cartoonish caricatures, some of them are very very human and even nice (so long as the person they’re being nice to is a nice White Woman) but the hatred is clear. A nasty bigot doesn’t have to be frothing, they can be surprisingly pleasant people – but they’re still repellent bigots.  It also brings in some nicely weird things happening like the whole Sovereignty Movement and the bizarre actual belief that people can set up personal and pseudo states basically by claiming they have. It was pretty well done managing to revile, mock and depict these people as the danger they are. But also make it clear they are not the only sources of bigotry and people shunned the POC or gay people without being part of the hate groups.