Middle of the night, Riley Sager.

Who took Billy?

"On July 15, 1994, ten-year-old Ethan and his best friend Billy fell asleep in a tent in their quiet New Jersey cul de sac. In the morning, Ethan woke up alone. The tent was sliced open, and Billy was gone, taken. He was never seen again. 

Thirty years later, Ethan has returned to Hemlock Circle, still desperate for answers. Plagued by bad dreams and insomnia, he begins to notice strange things happening on the street under the cover of darkness. Someone is prowling the cul de sac when no one is awake to see them. 

Is the one who took Billy still out there?”

 

Riley Sager is a master of building up tension. Like in the previous books that I have read by him, the text takes a grip of the reader in this one too, making one both unable and unwilling to stop reading before the end reveal. The reader gets clues about Billy’s disappearing in every chapter, and then the clues are disproved in the next one. Is it something supernatural, some sininister being that took Billy? Or some evil person? Each time you think you got it, you don’t really.

 

The book’s chapters are set alternately in the past and in the present. This approach works well in this plot. There are a lot of side characters, but it doesn’t really matter if you remember them all or not, because the plot moves forward mainly with the main characters. Some characters are only present for one chapter, and that’s it. Although I did find the advancing plot of the book suspenseful, the ending was somewhat bland. I was left longing for more reason for all that happened, perhaps something scarier, something worth all the sidelines in the plot. Nevertheless, Middle of the Night is still definitely worth the read for all who love suspenseful thrillers! 

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