Midnight Crossroad (Midnight, Texas, #1) in Around the World in 80 Books

Jul 04, 2014 Nancy H rated it it was amazing

This is a very different kind of book for this author. I love several of her other series - the Shakespeare ones, the Grave ones, and the Aurora Teagarten ones, and I wasn't quite sure what to expect with this one. It was quite different, and I found that I really liked it, despite some misgivings at first. It is the story of a tiny town in Texas, called Midnight, and of the persons who live there. All of the townspeople have secrets, and some are quite unique. The story revolves around the newc ...more

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Jun 15, 2014 Nadine in NY Jones rated it it was ok

Shelves: mystery, paranormal

I ended up feeling very "blah" about this book. It's not bad, it's entertaining enough, but ... I didn't love it either. I didn't really care that much about any of the characters. I was left wondering what exactly was Ms Harris' goal in writing this? Where is she going with this series? I feel like she took a few characters from previous books she'd written, then threw in a few other characters she'd had bouncing around in her head, and forced them to all live together in one small town. Then s I ended up feeling very "blah" about this book. It's not bad, it's entertaining enough, but ... I didn't love it either. I didn't really care that much about any of the characters. I was left wondering what exactly was Ms Harris' goal in writing this? Where is she going with this series? I feel like she took a few characters from previous books she'd written, then threw in a few other characters she'd had bouncing around in her head, and forced them to all live together in one small town. Then she threw in a dead body, for plot. She didn't even really bother to figure out which character would be the main character - that bounced around throughout the story. Is it Fifi? Or Manfred? Or Bobo? Or, hell, maybe it's Lemuel.

I guess this is a mystery. The dead body doesn't really show up until page 80-something. The characters kinda wanna figure out whodunnit, but ... it's not their main goal either. There's a conservative nutjob motorcycle group thrown in, just to confuse things. There's a kidnapping ... that does exactly nothing to further the plot. In the end, the mystery is solved by ... the police! Imagine that! Once the sheriff (and I could not figure out if he was supposed to be a major character or not) gives pertinent details to the residents of Midnight (and why would he even be giving out these details???), they suddenly put two and two together and figure it out. The READER can't figure it out at all, the reader lacks certain information that the characters have.

And even though the maybe-kinda-sorta central character, Manfred, is a psychic ... his psychic abilities do exactly squat to further the plot. What's the point of even making him a psychic? He could have been a stock market investor or a telemarketer or an author, for all that his job had to do with the story.

A psychic named Manfred didn't seem that interesting to me, until I clued in to the fact that he's from the Harper Connelly Mysteries Quartet series, which did happen to be my favorite of Ms Harris's series. So I perked up. Apparently Bobo is from the The Lily Bard Mysteries Omnibus series, which I was also very fond of, but I don't remember him.

I made excellent progress on this book while stuck in court for TWO HOURS (only to have my case rescheduled. The wheels of justice are fucking INEFFICIENT!!!) Interestingly, this was a really good fit, the motley group of characters melded nicely with the motley group of people I was sitting among.

So, in summation, this is a fun read, but it is not at all cohesive or engaging, or even particularly exciting. There's no "there" there. ...more

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May 26, 2015 alana rated it liked it

Shelves: crime, guilty-pleasures, vamps, fantasy

With Midnight Crossroad, Charlaine Harris uses a simple crime story to introduce a new town and cast of characters. This world appears to be a different one than that of the Southern Vampire/Sookie Stackhouse series but still builds upon a mash-up of quirky Southern folk and the supernatural world. The narrator's eye roves from one character to another (unlike the Sookie-centric novels) so readers get a bit of insight into several odd residents of Midnight, Texas. The story was quick and fun -- ...more

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Oct 12, 2014 Anna rated it really liked it

Shelves: urban-fantasy-series

An enjoyable read, and it was good to see friends from Shakespeare and Lawrenceville again. It took me such a long time to realize that Bobo from the Lily Bard series was there, and I love the new characters.Some of our friends from the grave series are around also. Honestly though, I just want to go back in time and have Martin back alive and well.

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