Middle of the Night

        看似平靜的社區，暗藏多年的可怕秘密
 
       毒堇路這個地段發生過最恐怖的一件事，就在伊森．馬修的後院裡。1994年7月某個晚上，十歲的伊森和好朋友比利在後院草地上搭帳篷過夜，隔天早上卻只剩下伊森獨自醒來。證據顯示，有人在半夜將帳篷割破擄走了比利，這名小男孩從此失蹤。
 
       30年後伊森回到久違的家園，當年的陰影卻開始向他襲來。噩夢、失眠，種種的壓力創傷症候群影響著伊森，他開始注意到半夜裡的不尋常現象：社區裡有不明人士在夜裡遊蕩、他家後院還出現比利的身影。究竟是有人在惡作劇，還是失蹤多年的比利居然回到了毒堇路？
 
       奇怪的現象讓伊森決定調查當年那個夜晚的真相，他重新找上兒時的朋友和鄰居們。事情似乎指向了比利失蹤前曾經聲稱有鬼魂出沒的一片森林，他還聲稱森林裡有個神祕的研究中心。隨著伊森接近事情的真相，他越明白：打從一開始，就沒有絕對安全的地方⋯(文／博客來外文館)

        In the latest jaw-dropping thriller from New York Times bestselling author Riley Sager, a man must contend with the long-ago disappearance of his childhood best friend—and the dark secrets lurking just beyond the safe confines of his picture-perfect neighborhood.

        The worst thing to ever happen on Hemlock Circle occurred in Ethan Marsh’s backyard. One July night, ten-year-old Ethan and his best friend and neighbor, Billy, fell asleep in a tent set up on a manicured lawn in a quiet, quaint New Jersey cul-de-sac. In the morning, Ethan woke up alone. During the night, someone had sliced the tent open with a knife and taken Billy. He was never seen again.

        Thirty years later, Ethan has reluctantly returned to his childhood home. Plagued by bad dreams and insomnia, he begins to notice strange things happening in the middle of the night. Someone seems to be roaming the cul-de-sac at odd hours, and signs of Billy’s presence keep appearing in Ethan’s backyard. Is someone playing a cruel prank? Or has Billy, long thought to be dead, somehow returned to Hemlock Circle?

        The mysterious occurrences prompt Ethan to investigate what really happened that night, a quest that reunites him with former friends and neighbors and leads him into the woods that surround Hemlock Circle. Woods where Billy claimed ghosts roamed and where a mysterious institute does clandestine research on a crumbling estate.  

        The closer Ethan gets to the truth, the more he realizes that no place—be it quiet forest or suburban street—is completely safe. And that the past has a way of haunting the present.