The Midnight Knock by John Fram-review

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ABOUT THE BOOK: Release Date October 21, 2025

In the frigid west Texas desert, weary travelers converge at a lonely roadside motel nestled at the foot of a massive mountain. Ethan and Hunter have left behind a corpse, a fire, and a horrific act of violence. Kyla and Fernanda are fleeing for the border. Stanley and his granddaughter are returning from Mexico with a mysterious man in hot pursuit. All of them are on the run from something. All of them are hiding something.

And somehow, they’re all connected to the motel’s other guest, an enigmatic woman named Sarah Powers.

Within hours, Sarah is dead. The strange twins who run the Brake Inn Motel inform the surviving guests that her murder demands justice. The guests are given an ultimatum: uncover the killer by midnight—or die when the protective lights around the motel go out.

Because something very old and very dangerous lurks in this corner of the desert. And it’s hungry.

But nothing at the Brake Inn Motel is quite as it seems. As time ticks away, alliances fracture, secrets unravel, and the guests will not only have to confront the violence of the past—they will need to face the darkness within themselves.

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REVIEW: THE MIDNIGHT KNOCK by John Fram is a contemporary, adult, supernatural, psychological thriller focusing on the guests and the strange events in and around the Brake-Inn Motel, an apparently deserted motel, in a nowhere town, on a remote west Texas desert.

Told from several omniscient third person perspectives THE MIDNIGHT KNOCK follows in the wake of several strangers who arrive within minutes of one another at the west Texas Brake-Inn Motel. Everyone is running from something or someone: everyone has a dark and dangerous secret, and in the end, everyone will discover they are all connected by a woman who is the first to die.

THE MIDNIGHT KNOCK is a genre blending, mind bending story of science-fiction, the supernatural, mystery, murder, mythology and folklore. Caught in an historical time loop, condemned to repeat the same twenty-four hours, the diverse and ill-fated cast of characters find themselves facing the destructive and powerful nature of the unknown until a small fracture in the loop gives way to buried memories from the past and the present.

THE MIDNIGHT KNOCK is a slow building, supernatural story of science fiction, secrets and lies, betrayal and vengeance, power and control, destiny and fate. The premise is multi-layered, complex, reflective, edgy, and is often repetitive  (with new information) due to the continuous time loop. The unreliable narrator(s) pulls the reader into a world of ambiguities, lies and deception as each character will experience and examine the world around them, a world that changes a little bit at a time.

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Reviewed by Sandy