Night Shift -- Charlaine Harris

This is the third and supposedly final book in Charlaine Harris' series about Midnight, Texas.  I wonder if that's true, now that NBC has announced a TV series based on the books.  Certainly, Harris has left just enough loose ends here to carry on if she wants to, and the characters could easily provide a lot more stories.  After all, living in Crossroads are a vampire, a contract killer, some weretigers, some angels, a witch, a psychic, a talking cat, and even a few normal folks.  I've enjoyed all three books in this series (I talked about the first one here), and it would be fine with me if more books came along.  If not, that's okay, since the ending of this one wraps things up nicely.

In the first two books, the question of why certain kinds of people were drawn to Midnight, located at a crossroad, wasn't answered.  We find out here, however.  There's a demon that's been buried under the crossroad for 250 years, and it's waking up.  It will take a powerful witch and others with supernatural powers to prevent it from emerging for another 250 years.  It's not an easy job, but there are plenty of other things going on in Midnight, too.  People are coming there and committing suicide, for instance.  And some of the residents just don't fit in, although nobody's quite sure what's up with them.  And the love live of Fiji, the witch, is getting complicated, not to mention the fact that her sister, who's not a nice person, has showed up and moved in with her.

The trilogy, and this book in particular, shows Harris' masterful storytelling ability as well as anything she's written.  She's in complete control of the narrative, taking her time, planting hints, developing characters, providing suspense and some laughs along the way.  I'm not sure I'll watch the TV series, but I'm sure glad I read the books.  Check 'em out.