Day Shift -- Charlaine Harris

I enjoyed Midnight Crossroad, the first book in what Harris says will be a trilogy about the town of Midnight, Texas.  "Town" might be the wrong word.  Midnight is too small to be a town.  "Hamlet" is probably a better description.  Anyway, I liked the first book a lot, so I read the second and liked it a lot, too.

The fact that Midnight is located at a crossroad tells you superstitious people something right there.  And sure enough, nearly everyone in Midnight seems to have a connection to the supernatural.  And supernatural connections or not, everyone has a secret or three.  We didn't learn everyone's secrets in the first book, but more of them are revealed in this sequel.  There are more than enough left for another book, however, and I don't see how Harris is going to be able to tie everything up in only one more.

The book begins with a short introduction to the town and its people, and almost immediately afterward there are three murders.  Not in Midnight, but in Dallas, where two of the residents are on business trips.  Olivia Charity is there to kill two people, which she does.  She's a contract killer, after all.  Manfred Bernado, a psychic, is there to give personal readings.  One of his clients is the third victim.  She dies during the reading.  Manfred is a suspect, of course, and the woman's loony son accuses him of stealing his mother's jewels, as well.

Meanwhile, someone has renovated the old hotel in Midnight.  It's become both a hotel and a home for the elderly, who for mysterious reasons that we don't learn (wait for the sequel!) are allowed to live there free of charge.  A young boy comes to town and grows into a teenager almost overnight.  Even for Midnight, these are odd things.  The local vampire, Lemuel, is off on a quest to find a translation for some mysterious volumes that were located in the first book.  The grandson of one of the new residents in the old hotel shows up.  He's a hunted man.  He's also a tie-in with the Sookie Stackhouse novels, as are a couple of other characters.  

There's no one protagonist in the Midnight books.  The whole town is the protagonist, with all the residents working together to care for each other and their strange little hamlet.  I like them all (especially Mr. Snuggly, the talking cat), and I like reading about them.  I look forward to the next book with eager anticipation, and if Harris decides to go beyond three books, I'll be happy to take the trip with her.