Now that it’s officially autumn and the weather is getting colder, “If We Were Villains” author M. L. Rio released her second book, a novella called “Graveyard Shift” on Sept. 24 to welcome us into spooky season.
The novel follows five night-owls who live or work near an old New England college campus and abide by its strict no smoking within 100 feet of campus property policy, leading them to meet nearly every night in the abandoned graveyard of the unkept Church of Saint Anthony the Anchorite.
The story starts in the perspective of the college newspaper’s editor-in-chief, Edie, as she stumbles upon her smoking buddies marveling at a freshly dug hole in the abandoned graveyard. With no idea of who dug it or why, Edie’s curiosity kicks off the events of the novella where we follow Tuck, Theo, Tamar and Hannah through perspective changes as they piece together why there’s an open grave in an ancient cemetery.
As the characters part ways — Tuck to the bar he owns, Tamar to a hotel receptionist desk and Hannah to the car she works out of as a rideshare driver — they continue to learn more about the case and share what they’ve learned through a group chat called Anchorites.
“Graveyard Shift” is a novella that really benefits from the changing perspectives. For example, in one chapter a character might spot their suspect walking towards another character, who, in the next chapter might get the chance to interrogate them and so on. This is how the story develops, moving from one person to another and I think this is executed very well.
However, this does leave room for information to get lost in a literary game of telephone. Towards the end of the novella, a character learns a damning piece of information about a student who passed away that they don’t realize is relevant and neglects to share it with the rest of the Anchorites.
On one hand, it gives the reader more insight into the situation than the characters and affirms something the reader already knows. On the other hand, though, the characters are lacking detrimental information that informs their individual plotlines.
This isn’t inherently a bad thing, however the Anchorites ignorance to this affects the ending that is already a slightly unsatisfying cliffhanger. It does this by creating a larger question for the reader that overwhelms the intention of the original ending, that question being: What are the Anchorites going to do when they find out?
Rio is no stranger to the cliffhanger ending and makes use it in her 2017 book “If We Were Villains” where the story ties up its loose ends into a nice bow, making the cliffhanger work in a way it doesn’t for “Graveyard Shift.”
Additionally, we have such a short amount of time to meet these characters — who are all well developed and quite complex, don’t get me wrong — however, three of our five main characters have names that start with T. In a full-length novel this might be fine, but in a 108-page novella, it proves confusing.
“Graveyard Shift” follows a story that isn’t entirely unfamiliar, yet was told with an interesting enough twist to keep me coming back to it — which is saying something considering I have quite a large did-not-finish list. Rio definitely exhibits her strengths as a writer in the quick-witted prose, story structure and complex character creation, however the ending drops-off a little too quickly for me.
If you’re in the mood for a dark academia mystery this spooky season, I would recommend “Graveyard Shift” at your own risk, the ending might consume you.
3/5 stars
jhammer@ramapo.edu
Featured photo courtesy of @sureasmel, Instagram
