Sylvie’s career is taking off. She’s currently an appeals court judge and a district judge in youth court, but her ultimate goal is to become a Crown Court Judge. Everything is lining up nicely, until Sylvie’s best friend reveals her devastating cancer diagnosis and her intention to right a wrong with a former classmate. Contacting the old classmate will open up a can of worms for Sylvie, but how can she deny her dying friend’s request? The past comes back to haunt Sylvie in IT ENDS AT MIDNIGHT by Harriet Tyce.

Sylvie’s workload is heavy and she’s juggling a new relationship with a caterer named Gareth, but for the first time, she feels good and balanced. That is until her best friend, Tess, reveals her brain cancer diagnosis. Tess has asked Sylvie to contact an old classmate, Linda, who Tess and Sylvie put behind bars with their testimony in another classmate’s murder. The young man who was killed was Sylvie’s boyfriend and he attempted to sexually assault Linda. At least that was what Linda said in her self-defense claim. Tess and Sylvie testified they never saw the assault. Did they lie? Years later, Sylvie contacts Linda, and Linda wants the truth.  What really is the truth?  As Sylvie deals with this matter, another issue surfaces that throws her career aspirations into turmoil. She’s accused of something morally reprehensible. As Sylvie’s friends start distancing themselves and Gareth cools off, Sylvie attends Tess's vow renewal with a sense of trepidation. The party begins, but it ends horribly with two bodies impaled on iron fence spikes. 

IT ENDS AT MIDNIGHT is a high-velocity roller-coaster ride with twists and turns thrown in along the way. Sylvie is ambitious and driven in her career, but she’s hiding a past that could ruin everything for her. Is she a reliable narrator? Or is there another more accurate point of view?  As the story evolves, there are some dark and depressing themes, and the characters can be unlikeable and self-centered. Even so, this novel is highly addictive and enjoyable as readers realize that nothing is quite what it seems. The secondary story involving a juvenile in youth court is also frightening and scarily realistic. It’s pulse-pounding action and dark, gritty characters battling it out to right a wrong and seek justice for the innocent.  IT ENDS AT MIDNIGHT by Harriet Tyce answers the question of whether you can truly escape your past, or if your day of reckoning will eventually come.  And when it comes, it won’t be pretty.