The Midnight Taxi ⭐⭐⭐💫

The Midnight Taxi by Yosha Gunasekera

G👀dreads

When the last fare of the night turns up dead in her backseat, a Sri Lankan American taxi driver works off the clock to clear her name in this mystery novel by debut author Yosha Gunasekera.

Siriwathi Perera doesn’t quite know where she’s going in life. She never expected to be a taxicab driver in New York City, struggling to make ends meet and still living with her parents at twenty-eight. The true-crime podcasts that keep Siri company as she drives don’t do much to make up for the legal career she imagined for herself, or the brother she’s grieving.

When public defender Amaya Fernando gets into her cab, they make a quick connection through their shared Sri Lankan roots. Siri, whose social circle is limited to her grade-school best friend, Alex, thinks things might finally be looking up with this new potential friendship. But she’s suddenly dropped into her own true crime when she discovers her next passenger murdered in the backseat, and she has to call Amaya sooner than she’d expected.

Pinned as the obvious and only suspect, and desperate to clear her name, Siri chases down leads across the boroughs of New York City with Amaya’s help. But with her court date looming, they have just five days to find out who really killed the midnight passenger—or Siri’s life will be over before she can even truly live it.

Genre: Fiction, Mystery, Thriller, Suspense

The How/Why: 🤷 Most likely an ad or reviews on SM 🤷 It was published in February and has been on hold with Libby until this week. 

⭐⭐⭐💫 3.5 stars

🎉 Overall Enjoyment? 🎉🎉🎉🎊

🎣 Did it grab and keep my attention? 🎣🎣🎣🎏

🗣️Would I recommend it to anyone? Yes ➕

🕮 Would I want a sequel? No ➖ but there is a lead in for Book 2 at the end. Amara calls Siri asking her to help investigate her next case.

📚 Would I want to read more books by this author? Yes ➕

💣💥 📢 Content Warnings? Google says: MŪrdɇr, P0licɇ Misc0nduḈt and C0ɇrci0n

🌶 Spice? No

🌪 Plot Twist? A little breeze but I saw it coming, so no for me.

👟 Pace? Started off good then hit a (taxi lingo) pothole

💻 Tidbits ~ Siri is a taxi driver obsessed with true crime, podcasts, and legal shows on TV. All of sudden she finds herself in what feels like an episode of one of her shows. A midnight passenger gets in her cab headed to the airport. When they arrive he's DɆǺ𖤀! Not a heart attack or chocked on a snack DɆǺ𖤀, but stabbed to dɇath DɆǺ𖤀. How could that be when there was no one else in the taxi? She's immediately arrested for MŪrdɇr. She calls Amaya, her last customer, also from Sri Lanka, who is a public defender that she hit it off with on their short drive earlier that night. Since all evidence points to Siri, she teams up with Amaya to try to find the kiĻ⅂er. Let the games begin. Lots of references to her crime shows along the way. "This is not how it played out on Law and Order". "Rule number 1", "Rule number 2", etc.

Amateur super sleuths hit the streets armed with... not much to go on but a pizza lead and Siri's podcast and TV crime knowledge to pave the way. At least Amaya knows how the system works!

The pace started off good then fell into a NYC pothole for a while.
The good: her insights into the life of a taxi driver and the ambiance of the Big Apple. The sights, the smells, the hustle bustle. The mouthwatering talk of Sri Lankan cuisine! NOT TO BE CONFUSED with Indian food. Got it! 
The stall: the constant focus on her brother who died two years prior changing the course of her life's path. Her dreams of going to law school squashed. She had to take over her father's taxi business to help support the family after her parents drained their savings for his treatment. It's a sweet story of family dynamics but sometimes it lost the momentum of the crime chasing and felt like a grief memoir. The emotion depth was there, I felt her pain, but it came at the expense of the whodunit. The five day clock was ticking.

There is a big message on environment impact. Say no to plastics. Got it!
There was late-to-the-party introduction of a cÜlƮ-ish group of environmentalists.  

I deducted 1.5 stars. 
Half for the pacing, half for too much brother (I'm gonna guess 20%), half for late intro of bad guys.

The audiobook narration by Isuri Wijesundara was very good.  

Now I'm off to find some Sri Lankan recipes, sans the coconut. I know it's a big player in their cuisine but sadly I'm allergic. 

🎧 Narrator: Isuri Wijesundara - very good

🎧10.0 hours 🕮 336 pages

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