When the fire came, Dayton chose survival over truth. For thirty years, nobody questioned the story. Not the city.Not the churches.Not the union.Not the men who carried the guilt home every night after third shift. But when Andre Mercer returns to Dayton after his father suffers a stroke, he uncovers a hidden collection of tapes tied to a deadly factory fire that changed the city forever. What begins as a quiet trip home becomes an unraveling of buried secrets, compromised leaders, and impossible choices made inside a city terrified of collapse. Set against the cold streets, abandoned plants, and stubborn heartbeat of Dayton, Third Shift is a haunting literary novella about working-class survival, moral exhaustion, and the truths cities learn to live with.
