BOOK REVIEW: ​NIGHT SERVICE BY JOHN F. LEONARD

Review by Lesley Ann Campbell
 
John F. Leonard never fails to impress with his stories. His latest venture ‘Night Service’ is no exception. Reeled in from chapter one, I didn’t want to put this down.

What grabbed me first was the gritty realness of being out late at night, trying to get home and being wary of everyone – even the most innocent looking person can make you nervous after midnight. It’s as if reality alters, your vision shifts, and you can now see all the evil that exists alongside us.

Night Service starts out as any late journey would do, with trepidation and wariness of strangers. You just want to get home, get warm and get cosied up in bed. Luke just wanted to go home with the girl of his dreams, Jessica, and get comfy. Living pay check to pay check, like most of us, he can’t really afford a taxi or an Uber. He instead resorts to the night bus, a service he isn’t thrilled about but trying to thrifty he goes for.

The bus stop fills up with an eclectic mix of characters including a drunken thug, a chatty old man and a nervous mother and child. Relieve when the bus finally arrives quickly turns to terror as the passengers are thrown into their own personal nightmare.

The way in which all the characters are written conveys a real feel for the nervous tension within the bus. The claustrophobia is tangible, you want to get away from the trouble but on a bus there really is nowhere to go if you are not by the door. If you have ever been on a bus, usually late on, when trouble has started then I’m sure you will reconcile. The feeling of just wanting to back away, slink down in your seat and avoid eye contact at all costs is all too real.

 The main protagonist, Luke, is a regular guy, he could be anyone of us. John creates this nightmare around him that eats through his nerve endings one by one. The tension builds at  quite a pace followed by a real smack in the face with the big reveal.

Night Service is a terrific read, perfect for one sitting too as less than 100 pages. Once you start, you won’t want to get off that bus. It’s a terrifying glimpse into the “what-if” of life after dark. It slots in nicely with the other  ‘Dead-Box’ and Scaeth Mythos stories. Once you read one, you want them all.

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