Grab the Lapels

Graveyard Shift by M.L. Rio

And old church and its graveyard are from a time before. As the years past, the city crept closer, and a college expanded up to the doorstep of the cemetery. Because signs are posted on all university buildings that read NO SMOKING WITHIN 100 FEET, five individuals who want to smoke in peace regularly run into each other amongst the headstones. Not friends really, they become related thanks to not only the shared space, but their nightlives.

Hannah is an insomniac who drives a rideshare, Tamar works the nightshift at a hotel desk, Edie is an overworked college student, Theo is a bartender, and Tuck is currently homeless and living in the dilapidated old church next to the cemetery. Because all five spend their waking hours at night, they intersect frequently in the graveyard. The novel, Graveyard Shift, opens when two in the group discover someone has created a shallow grave and left no clues.

From there, Theo, Tamar, Edie, Tuck, and Hannah turn into a sort of Scooby-Doo episode to solve the mystery. M.L. Rio is not unaware of the comparison and acknowledges it when Hannah thinks, “Their Scooby-Doo sleuthing might turn up some answers eventually, but why wait? Let the kids keep meddling. The adults had some talking to do.” Hannah is more gonzo, willing to be the muscle in the group, the “insane” one, the one that is all hard edges. Edie is a journalism major and editor of the university newspaper, so she’s looking for a story. Tuck wants to know who’s hanging around the church for safety reasons; he doesn’t need anyone to discover he’s squatting, but he also was majoring in mycology before dropping out of college. This is important. Tamar, though a hotel receptionist, has a Masters of Library Science, so her research skills benefit the sleuthing. Theo is the “right time, right place” guy because he has access to people through his work at the bar.

M.L. Rio’s novella is a mystery with a little bit of eco-horror in that what goes in the shallow grave is a biohazard, and if something like that is being hidden, surely there is something sketchy going on in the university labs. Rio’s written a fairly short book; each character narrates a chapter, we reach the middle of the story, the cycle of narrators begins again, and then it’s over. By following a pattern, readers get a nice sense of rhythm and expectation of how close they are to the ending.

I had a lot of fun reading Graveyard Shift, as it not only felt like a Scooby-Doo for adults, but it reminded me of my own years working a “graveyard shift” from 11:00PM to 9:00AM. Things get weird at night but in a way I can’t explain. It’s different people, a different vibe, and everything feels heightened.

summer reading

  • So Thirsty by Rachel Harrison
  • Goodbye Earl by Leesa Cross-Smith
  • Girls with Long Shadows by Tennessee Hill
  • All this Can Be True by Jen Michalski
  • Graveyard Shift by M.L. Rio
  • Big Man with a Shovel by Joe Amato (did not finish)
  • Going Bovine by Libba Bray (did not finish)
  • Perfume: The Story of a Murderer by Patrick Suskind
  • Everything is Tuberculosis by John Green
  • Bastard Out of Carolina by Dorothy Allison
  • Boring, Boring, Boring, Boring, Boring, Boring, Boring by Zach Plague
  • The New York Trilogy by Paul Auster
  • The Outsider by Richard Wright
  • Why We Can’t Wait by Martin Luther King, Jr.
  • Building a Life Out of Words by Shawn Smucker
  • Kittentits by Holly Wilson
  • The Last God by Jean Davis
  • Homing by Sherrie Flick
  • The Sorrows of Satan by Marie Corelli
  • Best Laid Plans by Allison Brennan (Lucy Kincaid #9)
  • Bitter Thirst by S.M. Reine (Preternatural Affairs #8)

21 comments

  1. Sounds like a fun quick read. I’m so not a night person, but the couple of times I did a 24-hour bike race the nighttime hours were my favorite because it was so very different from the noise and bustle of the daytime. Other than those races years ago, I’m generally lights out by 9, sometimes earlier. But then I get up at 5 every day, soooo. 🙂

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    • You know, you’re right. I do tend to associate outdoorsy people and athletic people with early morning hours. Probably because the best time to do labor outside is before the sun starts burning your biscuits. I worked midnights that one year in college, and you start to slowly feel like an animal. Again, it’s hard to describe, but maybe you understand what I mean from your experiences with those 24-hour bike races.

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  3. This sounds like a fun book actually, would I enjoy it? Surprisingly I never got into Scooby-Doo, although you think that would be right up my alley. Alas, no.

    Please tell me more about you working the night shifts! This sounds fascinating, and I have no doubt stuff feels a bit…weirder. I’m the opposite of a night owl, so I always feel like being out of the house past 10pm I’m doing something ‘bad’ haha

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    • Well, right after I graduated high school, the summer before I went to college, I worked third shift in a group home for adults with mental and physical disabilities. I would arrive at 11:00 p.m. and leave at 9:00 a.m.. This house was out in the middle of nowhere. A mile or so down the road, though, was a factory. The factory had a shift that got out sometime after midnight. There was one guy who would leave the factory, park in front of the house, turn on the interior light in his car, and sit there and watch us. It was so unnerving, especially because some of the windows in the house didn’t lock. There was one night when we knew he was there, and we tried to ignore him. However, when we checked back later, we saw that his dome light was still on, and his driver’s door was open. He wasn’t in the car. So, maybe that’s not normal, but I think it’s indicative of the freaky shit that can happen on third shifts.

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  4. I used to (mostly) enjoy night shifts. Mine usually ran from 19.30-07.30, and I always enjoyed the feeling of pouring out of the hospital into the early morning light, alongside all the other night shift workers! We also sometimes ordered pizza on night shifts, which definitely would not have been allowed during the day.

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    • My cousin is a nurse, too, and he works the night shift. I wonder if he enjoys it like you did. I always imagine the night shift at a hospital is when all the crazy stuff happens, but of course I’m thinking from an American perspective (meaning staff are mostly dealing with gun shot wounds).

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      • Well, I am pleased to report we never had any gunshot wounds on our ward! I am sure we had some because the hospital also took in military patients, but it would have been very surprising if they’d made it to children’s surgery. We did have a lot of mad things happen on night shifts, but our nights were often calmer than the days.

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        • In the US, medical folks, especially in emergency rooms, are advocating for gun control as a health care reform because it’s so prevalent here to spend time treating and losing patients to gun deaths at hospitals 🫤

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