The Night Shift: Who Owns Chicago After Dark?

Chicago changes when the sun goes down. The offices empty. The neon burns harder. The streets narrow into corridors of snow and shadow. For columnist Nick Golata, that transformation is a gift. He lives for the night shift, for the small tragedies and strange encounters that fill his column. He knows the captains, the patrolmen, the lonely souls who move through the Loop after midnight. He believes he has seen everything the city can offer.

Then a young woman is found dead in a recessed doorway downtown, her throat torn in a way that leaves even seasoned detectives uneasy. Footprints in fresh snow lead from the curb... and then change into something else entirely. The evidence refuses to behave. A colleague hints at old legends wearing modern clothes. Nick laughs it off. Chicago is a practical city. Superstition belongs in confession magazines and penny dreadfuls.

But as the night deepens and coffee grows bitter in a cramped apartment, speculation becomes uncomfortable. The city is vast. People disappear every day. Some leave behind nothing but a rented room and a half-empty jar on a shelf. Nick has always written about the darkness from a safe distance. Now the investigation presses closer. The question is no longer whether monsters exist. It is who controls the streets when everyone else is asleep.

Frank M. Robinson built his reputation on sharp, ironic science fiction that blends everyday settings with unsettling reversals. His later novels include The Power, a chilling study of political influence that was adapted for film, and he became a respected historian of the genre with works such as Science Fiction of the 20th Century. In the early part of his career, Robinson published stories in magazines like Fantasy Magazine and other pulp-era venues, developing the crisp dialogue and quiet sting that define “The Night Shift.”