The final book of the Midnighters trilogy confronts five teenage heroes with a danger their kind has never faced before. By "their kind," I mean those special people, born at the stroke of midnight, who experience the twenty-fifth hour of every day: the hour hidden within a moment at midnight. While everyone else stands frozen, unaware that time is passing, five high school kids in Bixby, Oklahoma move through a world filled with an eerie blue glow, shared only by the ancient, hungry darklings that dwell beyond the town limits. The darklings are trouble enough one hour a day; but when rips of blue time start opening up during daylight hours, Jessica and her friends must consider the possibility that the World Is Coming to an End.

Rex, the group's seer, can find nothing about this in the lore of past generations of midnighters. But he has other troubles - such as controlling the predatory instincts of the darkling that has become a part of him. Melissa, gifted as a mindcaster, plumbs the mind of the reclusive old shrew who alone survived when the town's last midnighters were wiped out in the 1950s; but she has nothing to say about this either. To find out what's happening, the midnighters must turn to the hated Grayfoot family, who collaborated with the darklings in that awful massacre, and who believe the midnighters to be the true monsters.

What they find out is worse than confirming their worst fears. They learn that at midnight on the upcoming Halloween, the blue time will rip wide open and everyone in Bixby - if not the whole world - will be fair game for the darklings. Which is to say, prey. If there is a way to keep mankind from moving down the food chain, it's up to five scared teenagers who, at times, can barely stand each other. It will depend on Dess, the math genius and expert in designing anti-darkling weapons; on Jonathan, the high-flying acrobat; and finally on Jessica, the nightmares' worst nightmare, who will be torn between saving her kid sister and making the ultimate leap-in-the-dark to save the world.

I found this whole trilogy to be a swift, compelling read. I am greatly impressed by this author's inventiveness in crafting such a strange, threatening world, and by his skill in making it believable and even somehow inviting. It is a world that combines a sense of ancient power with an easy familiarity with the way young people talk, and the things they talk about, right at this moment. I would like to hope such a cleverly made book might stretch this moment out forever, but I suspect that the time to appreciate it is right now. So what are you waiting for?

Robbie Fischer
USA

Recommended Age: 14+

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