Riley Sager’s latest mystery thriller about a child who disappeared in the ‘90s, his friends reuniting after 30 years, and the “picture perfect” neighborhood that may not be what it seems.
Hello everyone, welcome back to my weekly talk about my favorite topic: books! Today I’m going to be chatting with you about my latest read, “Middle of the Night” by Riley Sager. This is his latest mystery thriller novel, released earlier this summer. He’s had popular novels in the past, but this is my first of his. I’m normally not a mystery thriller person; if I do mystery it’s the classics like Agatha Christie or Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, not contemporary ones. Probably because I tend to guess (for the most part) what happens, or the red herrings are so obvious I roll my eyes and get annoyed that the author would believe their readers would fall for that. Wow, this makes me sound insufferable, huh?
However; I’ve read a few contemporary mystery thrillers this year and enjoyed them. (Maybe I’ve been reading the wrong authors?) So I decided to give Riley Sager’s latest a try. Plus, I’m a sucker for a well-designed book cover, and this one caught my eye. The green, I tell you. It’s the green.
Alrighty roo! Here’s a quick synopsis: In 1994, on a quiet cul-de-sac in a quiet town, 10-year-olds Ethan and Billy are sleeping in a tent in Ethan’s backyard. The next morning, Ethan wakes up to a giant slash in the tent and Billy taken. He was never seen again.
Thirty years later, Ethan returns to his childhood home – the place where he last saw his friend Billy. Suffering from insomnia and haunting nightmares, Ethan begins to notice strange things happening in… the Middle of the Night. Someone’s roaming the cul-de-sac, setting off all the motion sensor lights, signs of Billy are showing up in the exact place he was last seen, and Ethan is convinced Billy has returned to Hemlock Circle. But is it really Billy, or is it just some cruel prank?
The strange happenings motivate Ethan to figure out what really went down that night thirty years ago and solve the mystery once and for all. This brings him back into the vortex of Hemlock Circle and the neighbors who live there – many of whom were also kids that fateful summer. The more Ethan investigates, the more he realizes that the quiet, quaint cul-de-sac of Hemlock Circle is not as it seems.
My star rating: a 3.5 out of 5.
So overall I did like this book… until the end. The end confused the heck out of me. Not in a “woah, what’s happening here, I’m lost” kind of way, but in a “woah, what’s happening here, I thought this was a mystery thriller, not a melodrama” way.
I think I was confused about the tone of this book. I get that there are supposed to be emotional moments. I mean, the main character’s best friend from grade school just disappeared overnight, and he was sleeping right next to him when it happened. The case was never solved. It went viral. (Well, ‘90s “viral”.) Reporters, camera crews, FBI, 20/20, Dateline, Unsolved Mysteries… it’s enough to mess up and traumatize even the bravest of adults. This poor kid was not only dealing with the loss of his friend, but the guilt of not stopping it from happening in the first place. Why didn’t he wake up? Why didn’t he hear anything? Damn, I’d have insomnia and nightmares too. But the emotion felt like a sudden – THUNK! Here you go! – on the reader near the end.
I’ll try not to get into spoilers, but I guessed that a certain character was involved by page 20. The minute the author introduced him (or even mentioned their existence) I was like, “Well, I’m sure that person’s involved. It fits the cliche, so I’m hoping not. But we’ll see.” Well, I saw, and it was true.
Let’s talk a bit about the pacing of the book. So it takes place in the present day in Ethan’s POV (first person), but then there are flashbacks to the summer Billy disappeared and it was written in third person, but from the POV of, well, lots of people. Ethan, Billy, their parents, the other neighborhood kids. There were alot of POVs, okay? Pretty good swathing of the events leading up to that night. Okay, cool. That’s fine. I’m down for that. What I didn’t enjoy were the flashbacks within the flashbacks. They were pretty jarring sometimes. My mind already knew I was in a flashback to 1994, so to then go back in time again would cause me to blink a few times and go, “Wait, what?” and flip back a page or two. And the annoying thing is these flashbacks within flashbacks were just fleshing out the red herring! The author put so much into a place/person/situation that Ethan was so sure was involved with Billy’s disappearance, it needed to be severely emphasized from other characters’ flashbacks. That’s where the eyeroll commenced. When you’re beating the reader over the head with something… in a mystery novel… it’s not going to be that thing. Now, when you mention a character in passing on page 20, forget their existence until around page 200, then a reader goes, “But why bring them up at all? Oh, because they’re involved? Cool, cool, figured as much in the beginning.”
The side characters were okay. I would have loved to have some of them fleshed out more. MILD SPOILER HERE. SKIP REST OF PARAGRAPH IF YOU’D LIKE. There is one character that annoyed me, and it wasn’t because of the character themself, but because of the author. In the flashbacks to 1994, there is a boy who lives in the cul-de-sac, and you find out that he’s struggling with his sexuality, especially since his best friend kissed him several months ago and he maybe probably sorta kinda liked it? But isn’t sure? Okay, that’s totally fine. That happens all the time, especially as a teen. Confusion, hormones… It’s the best. That’s not what I’m annoyed with. I’m annoyed that he then becomes a caricature of teenagers struggling with their sexuality by being a bully to other kids. And then this bully (who does eventually figure things out, comes out as gay, and has a husband in present day) becomes a cop. A cop. Okay, cool, another cliche: high school bullies becoming cops. Oy vey.
Overall the pacing was good. In spite of the annoyances I mentioned, I was still interested and invested. Not so much about the whodunit, but just about what happened to Billy in general. He disappeared in such a way that it had to have been more than a “slash and grab” job.
Which brings me to the ending. It… kind of landed like a cheap latex balloon slowly losing air from its opening and making that sad little farting noise. While I wasn’t expecting the “Die Hard” level of action and an exciting climax, I was expecting… something? The reveal of what happened to Billy landed with a ker-plunk and the events after the reveal left me feeling unsatisfied. Sure, a lot of times a child disappearing isn’t a hugely exciting thing; it’s just sad. Rarely is it due to serial killers or crazed kidnappers, but maybe I wouldn’t feel the way I do about it if it didn’t include the epilogue.
Yes, there’s an epilogue, and it’s what I was referring to when I said it turned melodramatic. Almost like a soap opera. The truth comes out, it shakes the cul-de-sac and everyone who lives on it, and changes their lives forever. Like I said, I don’t want to say any spoilers, but it definitely changes Ethan’s life forever. I wanted Ethan to rest. I wanted him to finally get the closure he so deserves and finally move past the events of that summer. But instead he’s given this ending that just didn’t land for me, and we’re supposed to believe he’s happy with his life now? I don’t know, I don’t buy it. I get where the author was going with it. There is a theme throughout the whole book about how Ethan can’t get past what happened, and that has really messed up his idea of what family truly means; how family is fleeting, and that has ruined relationships he’s had in the past. He has severe PTSD from the incident with Billy, and I was hoping he would be able to find the closure he so desperately needed and heal. I guess this is the author’s way of showing that, but I didn’t like it because it was just so fast. Almost like, “Oop! Better have your shit together now Ethan, because you need to do this thing!” He doesn’t owe anyone anything! Yet he felt obligated to get his shit together and be put in a situation he was definitely not ready for. At least in my opinion.
ANOTHER MILD SPOILER AHEAD. The one good thing I liked about the epilogue was the theme of the people living on the cul-de-sac being “set free”. The same people (with the exception of Billy’s family, who moved out soon after his disappearance) lived there for well over 30 years. Some were there since they built the neighborhood. It was a very tight-knit group of people who (for the most part) liked each other and even became friends. It’s implied that these people stayed after Billy’s disappearance because they didn’t want to look guilty by leaving, but then why stay for so long? It felt almost like Hemlock Circle was keeping them there because of this horrific thing that happened in 1994. When the truth came out and they figured out what happened to Billy, it was like a breath of fresh air came through the neighborhood, and I think the people who lived on the cul-de-sac could finally be free of the events of that summer. Most of them finally left, and I think that’s a great and healthy thing to do. I wish they all did, but that’s the gripe I have when it comes to Ethan’s ending.
This book would have been a solid 4 stars, maybe even 4.5, but that ending just rubbed me the wrong way and left a weird taste in my mouth, so I knocked it down to 3.5.
Have you read “Middle of the Night”? What about Riley Sager’s other novels? Let me know down in the comments, I’d love to hear from you!
Until next time, my lovelies!
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