Private Midnight
Private Midnight is a 2009 novel by the controversial expatriate American writer Kris Saknussemm, published by The Overlook Press.
Style and themes
Described in the jacket notes by Publishers Weekly as "James Ellroy meets David Lynch in this addictive mix of noir and supernatural horror from Saknussemm." , the book is a psychological [...] thriller. It is also an allegory AbOUT personal sabotage and the age-old gender war told in a hardboiled detective first-person narrative.
Plot summary
Set in a crime-ridden unnamed imaginary California city in the present era, it relates the strange case of Detective Birch Ritter, a physically powerful but emotionally embattled Nick Nolte type of man, with a bit of decency still left in him but more than a few official questions about his record and far too many shadows from his past.
One of these shadows, a corrupt cop buddy from the bad old days who resurfaces, lures Ritter into a meeting with an exotic woman named Genevieve, who says her business is shadows. What she knows, lies "between the darkness and the light in men", possibly more than Ritter may want to find out, and much more than he can resist learning.
Elements
The story features signature Saknussemm elements: a love of music and musicality of language, dark surrealism and explicit [...].
References
- K. Saknussemm, Private Midnight, The Overlook Press, U.S.A., 2009 (ISBN 1-59020-176-0).