07 April 2025
Full of unexpected twists and heartrending turns, The Midnight King is a dark thriller about family, trauma and the secrets we hide within.
Husband. Father. Serial Killer.
‘The best book I’ve read about a serial killer since Red Dragon‘ GARETH BROWN
‘Incredibly dark, atmospheric and utterly gripping’ WILL DEAN
‘A twisty and twisted thriller that will worm its way into your mind’ JO CALLAGHAN
Author’s Note
Many of you will find this book to be in bad taste.
In part, it is due to the violence. Murder is – by its very nature – a violent crime. I believe this to be true no matter how the act is performed. Loud, quiet, bludgeon or lethal injection. A murder is the ending of the most precious thing there is: a life.
In part, it is due to the victims. As with all crimes, there are surelydegrees to murder, and so perhaps we should look to the murdered as much as the method. For if a killing is always violent, then it must be at its most violent when it is the killing of a child.
In part, it is due to the scale. During the fourteen-year period from August 1994 until May 2008, thirteen children were reported missing from Davidson County and the greater Nashville metropolitan area. Thirteen children who would later be discovered dead. Their bodies wrapped in black garbage bags, bound tightly with nylon rope, tied with the same constrictor knot. Each one of them left by a body of water. Each one of them strangled, their corpses showing clear evidence of having been bathed in bleach post-mortem. Some were found quick, but most were not. Most had rotted away to some degree by the time they were uncovered.
In part, it is due to who I am: Lucas Cole, aka Jack Cross. A man who has written an obscene number of objectively poor novels. Novels that, to varying degrees, idolise vigilante justice, casual sexism and toxic masculinity. Perhaps it surprises you to know that I am quite familiar with these terms, perhaps it does not. I make no apologies for knowing what sort of novels my audience wants to read, and playing to it for maximum effect. I am a writer, that is my job.
But the main reason that many will struggle with this book is because the crimes are still relatively fresh, their impact still felt in the local community. Here, the name ‘Edward Morrison’ is akin to that of the bogeyman. It is a name spoken quietly and with some degree of trepidation, when it is spoken at all. Many prefer to use the moniker coined by the media: the ‘Music City Monster’. Possibly this dehumanises him, I don’t know.
What I do know is that Edward Morrison was convicted of the abduction of a ten-year-old boy and the first-degree murder of the boy’s parents. While he was never formally prosecuted for killing the thirteen other children (and seven parents, who are often sadly overlooked), this is nothing unusual. To use an unfortunate phrase, it would likely have been overkill: as I type, Morrison now sits on death row, where – legal appeals and congressional interference aside – he awaits his own violent murder, at which point a line might finally be drawn under this unsightly story.
The final point that I wish to make from the outset is that while I have taken these crimes as a starting point, I did not set out to write a factual account of these child murders. There has been plenty written about the so-called Music City Monster already, and it was never my intention to add my work to that collection. My aim is – and always has been – to entertain. If you find this to be distasteful, then I would refer you to the start of my Author’s Note.
Accordingly, this book is a work of fiction.
It is not a confession.
Lucas Cole
