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A Novel
by John Fram
A locked-room mystery meets white-knuckle horror in this mind-bending thriller, where strangers must survive a deadly night in a remote Texas motel.
In the frigid west Texas desert, weary travelers converge at a lonely roadside motel nestled at the foot of a massive mountain. Ethan and Hunter have left behind a corpse, a fire, and a horrific act of violence. Kyla and Fernanda are fleeing for the border. Stanley and his granddaughter are returning from Mexico with a mysterious man in hot pursuit. All of them are on the run from something. All of them are hiding something.
And somehow, they're all connected to the motel's other guest, an enigmatic woman named Sarah Powers.
Within hours, Sarah is dead. The strange twins who run the Brake Inn Motel inform the surviving guests that her murder demands justice. The guests are given an ultimatum: uncover the killer by midnight—or die when the protective lights around the motel go out.
Because something very old and very dangerous lurks in this corner of the desert. And it's hungry.
But nothing at the Brake Inn Motel is quite as it seems. As time ticks away, alliances fracture, secrets unravel, and the guests will not only have to confront the violence of the past—they will need to face the darkness within themselves.
A masterful blend of psychological tension, supernatural horror, and layered storytelling, The Midnight Knock pushes the boundaries of what a mystery can be. And with its unforgettable climax, this novel cements John Fram as a contemporary master of the genre.
"And Then There Were None meets The Twilight Zone in Fram's inventive latest. Fram keeps even savvy readers guessing about where he's headed next and manages to flesh out each member of the book's large cast. The result is wickedly satisfying." —Publishers Weekly (starred review)
"The Midnight Knock is a brilliant, trippy, gore-drenched western where everything is queer, including time and space. Like S.A. Cosby, Fram writes gorgeously about the tragedies and triumphs of Southern culture and masculinity (in Fram's case, Southwestern); like Blake Crouch, he bends the laws of nature to explore big ideas. But The Midnight Knock is inventive and provocative in a way only Fram's brain can produce, marking him as a horror-thriller writer par excellence." —Ashley Winstead, USA Today-bestselling author of This Book Will Bury Me
"David Lynch meets Agatha Christie in this razor-sharp, nightmare of a thriller. John Fram delivers a diabolically smart, high-stakes puzzle wrapped in dread and accompanied by a ticking clock that ratchets the tension to unbearable levels! It's creepy, clever, and cinematic as hell. Hollywood won't be far behind." —Brad Thor, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Edge Of Honor
This information about The Midnight Knock was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
John Fram is an author from Texas. His critically acclaimed debut, The Bright Lands, was named a Best Book of 2020 by CrimeReads, BookPage, and elsewhere. He lives between Waco and Austin.
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