The Midnight King

By Tariq Ashkanani

‘This is a work of fiction. This is not a confession.’

Lucas Cole is a bestselling writer. He is also a father, a widower, and a beloved celebrity in his small town. He is an unassuming man ­- tall, thin and quietly friendly. Lucas Cole is also a serial killer.

Nathan Cole has known the truth about his father since he was ten years old. Too terrified to go to the police, he ran away from home as soon as he was able, carrying the guilt of leaving his sister behind. But when Lucas is found dead in a dingy motel room, Nathan returns to his childhood home for the first time in seventeen years. It’s there he finds The Midnight King, his father’s final unpublished manuscript, a fictionalised account of his hideous crimes, hidden in a box of trinkets taken from his victims. Trinkets that include a ribbon belonging to a missing eight-year-old girl who disappeared only days before his father’s death.

Now, Nathan must deal with the consequences of keeping his father’s secret. But it may not be as simple as finding a lost child. For The Midnight King holds Nathan’s secrets as well as Lucas’s, and he is not the only one searching for the truth…