An incident amidst nightly escapades

"Graveyard Shift" is a highly anticipated work by M L Rio, following her success with If We Were Villains (Flatiron Books), released in 2017. Like its predecessor, the novella "Graveyard Shift" also stays in the realm of dark academia; however, the similarities between the two books end there.

The story follows a small, mismatched crowd of five. The only commonalities among this miscellaneous group are their love for cigarettes, their graveyard-shift schedules, and their nightly visits to the cemetery behind the Church of Saint Anthony the Anchorite. They have a social media group chat named Anchorite, and they refer to one another as Anchorites as well. Edie is a journalism student who works for a six-time award-winning student paper. Burdened by the success of her predecessors, she is always chasing new stories. Tuck is a dropout—a fact he hides from his fellow Anchorites—jobless and homeless, taking temporary refuge at the Church of Saint Anthony the Anchorite. Theo is a bartender, as well as a cunning social manipulator who makes it his business to know everything about everyone. Tamar works two jobs: a university librarian during the day and a receptionist at night. However, she feels like a failure, as she is divorced and stuck with two jobs that bring her no joy and leave her no time to explore any pleasure in her life. Lastly, there is Hannah, a rideshare driver and the true insomniac of the group, who has struggled with sleep for as long as she can remember. She possesses a feline spirit and is as unpredictable as a cat.

These Anchorites are a group of lonely individuals who have found kinship in an unconventional space and time. Yet none of them will openly admit their affinity for one another. Despite keeping social lives outside the Anchorite, they are unfailingly active in the group chat throughout the day, in addition to their nightly meetings at the cemetery. By happenstance, it is in this defunct cemetery of Saint Anthony that they encounter an unbidden mystery on a chill-laden October night during one of their usual smoking escapades. They discover a hole dug as neatly as a grave. This pricks their curiosity, and they try to uncover any connections between the hole and the ongoing neighbourhood mystery known as the "Hostile Incident." As a result, they don the mantle of sleuths for the night to unravel the secret of the hole.

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Prelude, Puzzle and Premonition

However, my complaint about the novella is its length—it's too short. The story concludes just as the plot gains momentum, ending with an unsatisfying cliffhanger. It feels like being stuck at the peak of a rollercoaster just as it's about to plunge. The brevity makes the story over-compressed and underdeveloped. Rio doesn't spend enough time addressing the concerns of the neighbourhood or explaining much about what the "Hostile Incident" is. On the other hand, the hastiness of the storyline makes the characters feel out of sync. We get such sketchy and inadequate backgrounds for each character that it's difficult to fully understand their perspectives. As a result, the Anchorites' commitment, concern, and excitement about unraveling the mystery of the hole seem odd. In particular, Edie's determination to get the story out to the public feels out of place; her concern for the "Hostile Incident" case seems more personal than professional.

Understandably, it is natural for books to fall short of the success of their predecessors. But "Graveyard Shift" does not even attempt to live up to that competition. Overall, it is a good pick for readers struggling with a reading block, as this book can be finished within a few hours. And the high-stakes plot will keep readers hooked until the end.

Tahmina Hossain is first and foremost a reader, a lover of literature, and then a writer. If you enjoy rambling about literature like her, then reach out at: [email protected]