"I didn't know what dread was until we moved into Blackhall Manor... the tall brick building looming ahead. It came with a history fit for any ghost story. None of my friends visited. Neither would I, given a choice. In Blackhall Manor, it was Halloween all year long".
"This had to be a nightmare. It couldn't be real. But this wasn't a nightmare I woke up from. It was a nightmare I woke up to".
"They had only just arrived but already, she felt a creeping sense of being watched. She looked beyond the cobwebs and the creaking floorboards. Shadows from the past were coming to life".
The Midnight Man by Caroline Mitchell is a tense and deeply unsettling murder mystery, with some horror, and supernatural/paranormal elements.
This was one of my Amazon Prime Reading downloads. I finished reading my last book of the year on the 31st, and fancied reading something hair-raising to while away the last hours before midnight. What better than a gripping thriller?!
The story starts with a bang (or a series of bangs), as the mysterious killer murders the whole family in a creepy old manor house on the outskirts of a small town of Slayton. He moves from room to room, dispatching one member of the family after another. The fourteen year old daughter of the family is hidden in the wardrobe, and we're waiting with trepidation whether the killer will find her.
Then the story jumps to the present, twenty five years later. The abandoned manor house is still standing, uninhabited and hiding its gruseome secrets.
On Halloween night five teenagers decide to play a dangerous game called The Midnight Man. They sneak out of their homes into the night and enter the darkness of the Blackhall manor. They follow the rules of the game, by inviting the dangerous Midnight Man in.
"If you open your door to the Midnight Man, hide with a candle wherever you can. Try not to scream as he draws near, because one of you won't be leaving here".
The Gothic atmosphere of the creepy house will give you shivers. You just know the game is not going to end well, and you want to scream at the silly girls, Get out of here, NOW!
One of the girls goes missing, the remaining four are terrified out of their wits. They are scared the Mignight Man will come after them, if they confess to parents where they spent the night.
Detective Sarah Nolan, the main protagonist, has her own ties to the house. She's just back at the police department after taking a leave of absence for mental health issues. Her return to the job is not a happy one. The colleagues either openly snigger and gossip about her, or blame her for staying away and leaving them short-staffed. Her new duties are very restricted. "She was lucky to have her job. But was it a job she was strong enough to return to?"
Sarah doesn't seem to be able to stand up to the bullying. She is trying hard to get her life back on track, but she is still not entirely recovered from her nervous breakdown, and finds the pressure from her colleagues unrelenting.
While helping with the investigation, she meets her old friend Maggie and her seven-year-old son Elliott.
Young Elliott has psychic abilities, he is frequently tormented by nightmares which predict the future or describe the present. "He wished he could talk to someone about his nightmares. He wasn't just a watcher. The smells, sounds, and feelings swallowed him up and followed into his days".
Elliott is a sensitive child, who deeply cares about his mother and doesn't want to burden her, disclosing the full extent of his dreadful visions. He tries to stay awake so as not see the Midnight Man in his nightmares, but it never works.
Sarah and Maggie have grown apart, but the recent tragic events bring them together. She takes the young child's visions seriously. "Elliott, with those eyes so dark and deep they spoke more than words could ever convey".
During one of her job tasks Sarah visits a disabled lady who lives with her son. Elsie is morbidly obese and can hardly get out of bed. Her son is her carer. Elsie is another blast from the past in Sarah's life. Her old friends... "they had all grown up here and all suffered in one way or another. What was it about Slayton that drew them all together, battle-scarred misfits of life?"
Thread by thread, the past binds the old friends tighter. Sarah has to dig deeper into her own childhood and darkest memories to find the killer. The past seems to cling on, never letting you go.
Is Sarah ready to meet the Midnight Man?
The Midnight Man is a tense, fast-paced thriller, a mix of police procedural and character examination. It hooks you in the first chapter, and draws you into the intertwined lives of the characters.
The plotline has lots of twists and turns, throwing the red herrings your way.
The ending left me rather underwhelmed, as there were no prior clues of the real identity of the killer, and their motivation was hard to believe.
The setting felt strangely American, with the gated community and references to the sheriff, yet there was a Tesco and fish and chips. I had to double-check whether the author is American or British.
The police procedural element also left me asking how realistic the expectations of Sarah's colleagues were. Wouldn's Sarah's position being filled on a temporary basis? And would you really blame your colleague who has mental health problems for taking a leave?
The Midnight Man is actually two mysteries in one, both creepy and spine-chilling. If you enjoy crime stories with a supernatural element, don't miss it (If you are on Amazon Prime, you can download this book for free on PrimeReading).
This is the first book in the series, and I cannot wait for the next instalment of the Slayton horrors.
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