The worst thing to ever happen on Hemlock Circle occurred in Ethan Marsh’s backyard. One July night, ten-year-old Ethan and his best friend and neighbor, Billy, fell asleep in a tent set up on a manicured lawn in a quiet, quaint New Jersey cul-de-sac. In the morning, Ethan woke up alone. During the night, someone had sliced the tent open with a knife and taken Billy. He was never seen again.

Thirty years later, Ethan has reluctantly returned to his childhood home. Plagued by bad dreams and insomnia, he begins to notice strange things happening in the middle of the night. Someone seems to be roaming the cul-de-sac at odd hours, and signs of Billy’s presence keep appearing in Ethan’s backyard. Is someone playing a cruel prank? Or has Billy, long thought to be dead, somehow returned to Hemlock Circle?

The mysterious occurrences prompt Ethan to investigate what really happened that night, a quest that reunites him with former friends and neighbors and leads him into the woods that surround Hemlock Circle. Woods where Billy claimed ghosts roamed and where a mysterious institute does clandestine research on a crumbling estate.

The closer Ethan gets to the truth, the more he realizes that no place—be it quiet forest or suburban street—is completely safe. And that the past has a way of haunting the present.

The night I read Middle of the Night, I forgot to make dinner. I was on the train home and became so wrapped up in the book that when I made it home, I immediately sat down, ignored my hunger, and kept reading on because I needed to know what would happen next. This book is just that good.

Thirty years after Ethan Marsh’s childhood best friend, Billy, disappeared while camping in Ethan’s backyard, Ethan is still left with questions about what happened that night. He was sound asleep right next to Billy when he disappeared. Years later, after Ethan reluctantly returns to his childhood home, he notices strange occurrences around his neighborhood that are inexplicably connected back to Billy. Is someone playing a joke? Or is Billy trying to communicate something important to his friend after all this time? As peculiar things continue to happen around the neighborhood, Ethan initiates his own investigation to finally get the answers that have been haunting him for thirty years.

Riley Sager seamlessly weaves the past and present together to create a truly propulsive read with a cast of characters that all have their own dark secrets. You won’t know who to trust as you try to piece together the truth about what really happened to Billy!