John Fram’s The Midnight Knock is a locked-room thriller draped in horror, gore, and supernatural dread. Eight strangers, each running from something and carrying secrets they’d rather bury, converge at a desolate desert motel. None of them know each other, yet they are tied together in ways that defy logic. When a murder occurs, it becomes clear that their arrival isn’t chance—it’s fate. And the true danger might not be the killer among them, but something older, darker, and far less human that prowls just beyond the glow of the motel lights.
This was my first book by Fram, and I was hooked from the start. I love a locked-room mystery with teeth, and this one sunk in deep. The structure, broken into parts, gave the story a relentless rhythm, and when I reached the end of the first night, I actually stopped and thought: holy fright, this is a mistake. But there was no turning back. From that point on, the tension tightened like a noose—hold on to your pants, people, because what unfolds is no simple whodunnit.
What makes this novel unforgettable is the atmosphere. Fram paints scenes so vivid they feel alive: roads that hunger, motels that breathe, landscapes that loom with menace. Inanimate objects pulse with life, liminal spaces swallow up reality, and every page feels like stepping deeper into a nightmare you strangely don’t want to wake from. I can say with certainty—I’ll never wander the borderlands, never stop at an outpost, and never risk getting caught in a liminal space. But I was thrilled to live it vicariously in these pages, where the horror is irresistible and survival is anything but guaranteed.
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Purchase The Midnight Knock
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