Book Review: THE NIGHT JANITOR

Title: The Night Janitor

Author: TF Allen
Publisher: Self-published
Pages: 306

My GoodReads Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐

I don’t know what genre to categorise this book into. It was a thriller certainly, but its supernatural elements were at the core of this story.

Luke Johnson works as a night janitor at a hospital. It is not his real name. The job allows him access to patients, allows him to heal. His only aim is to heal people of their illness, heal the world of the evil that his sister stands for.

Luke has amazing powers of healing, while his sister, Annamaria Gabor is a sociopath, a cold-blooded killer. Annamaria, her name now changed to Anna Varner, is now running for the post of Vice-President of the United States, after the unexpected death of her husband, who was earlier supposed to be a running mate to Senator Blair. Annamaria knows it is only a matter of time before the Senator is no longer a hurdle in her path and the Presidency is hers. She will do whatever it takes to reach the top.

For Annamaria has a power. She can kill by touching her victim and whispering the name of the disease she wants them to be struck with. She now wants to hurt Nick, the fake psychic conman who is actually the father who abandoned her and Luke when she was only 13 years old.

Luke must hide his abilities from people, and most of all keep moving as he desperately seeks to avoid getting hunted down by Annamaria’s goons. 

After years of running, Marisa Cruz, a nurse at the Houston hospital he works for, breaks through his defences, promising to keep him under the radar so he can continue to heal. Luke knows that it’s not a promise she can keep. Annamaria will not rest until Luke is dead.

Eventually, Annamaria decides to take matters in her own hands. Sometimes you needed to drive into the mud and wrestle with the pigs yourself.

Meanwhile, Clyde Merritt, a YouTube sensation on the lookout for a story that will make him viral, becomes aware of the Gabor siblings. It is the most unusual story of his career, and it helps him earn more money than he has ever known. But it also draws the attention of Annamaria, exposing him to real danger. When she sends goons after him, he becomes part of the story he is chasing.

Unknown to Annamaria and Clyde, there is yet another person whose existence threatens the most powerful woman in America. Will Annamaria kill Luke and Marisa, or will they be able to defend themselves?

The book grabs our attention with the very first line: No one had shot at Luke Johnson in three months.

The Night Janitor is written in the third person point of view of Luke, Annamaria and Clyde. The action is relentless, given that life and death are hanging in the balance.

But there were some things that stuck out. It’s hard to believe that a nurse would be so adept at handling guns, or why she even has a gun in the first place. We don’t come to know of any threat to her life.

Also, a lot more could have been done to show why Annamaria was so angry with Luke, other than the inciting incident.

Even though the abilities of the siblings are supernatural in nature, they feel completely plausible in the story. Even so, I would have liked to have known how they had first become aware of their powers. Had matters of faith and belief been brought into the mix, it would have been an added bonus.

The character of Clyde started out strong but fizzled out midway through, only to assume control of his actions once again towards the end of the book.

I don’t know if the author plans to work on a sequel, but I hope he thinks about it, especially given the powers of yet another character that we come to know of. There are pharma companies and hospitals that would definitely object to healing powers.

(I read this book through NetGalley.)