The Door at Midnight - by Frederic Tuten (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

A metaphysical noir and enthralling tale of love from a master stylist

Called to Mexico City by the alluring and enigmatic wife of a vanished billionaire, a private investigator with unusual "sympathetic powers" agrees to solve the mystery of the man's disappearance. Ludovico Cruz was admired by many for his commitment to social justice, but were his protectors his true friends or in the pay of his enemies? Had he fled, or been kidnapped or murdered by the forces of a brutal dictatorship?

Stalked by corrupt cops and their henchmen, whisked away to secret caves, and haunted by the aura of the man he seeks, our hero must navigate the labyrinthine tunnels of memory and the human heart to close the case.

Review Quotes

Praise for The Door at Midnight

"The Door at Midnight is thrillingly worldly, deeply romantic, and a total pleasure to read. Frederic Tuten is one of my very favorites, and his book is a gift and a delight." --Emma Cline, author of The Girls and Switzy

"A book by Frederic Tuten is always something to celebrate, and this one's a peach. It plays like a classic while laying its finger unerringly on the pulse of today's benighted and bewildered world. A bracing literary martini made up of romance, intrigue, violence, and one beautiful sentence after another." --Jonathan Coe, author of The Rotters' Club and The Proof of My Innocence

"The Door at Midnight reads like Joycean provocations that dig deep into the psyche. This novel adds yet another level of intrigue to Tuten's life as an artist and brings a dizzying dimension of romantic love to the noir genre." --Steve Martin, actor and author of An Object of Beauty

Select Praise for Frederic Tuten

"Courageous, adventurous, intelligent and highly original." --American Academy of Arts and Letters Award for Distinguished Writing Citation

"At the peak of his powers." --Bookforum

"Intoxicating." --New York Magazine

"Tuten's prose is always vital, often dazzling." --New York Times Book Review

"[An] exceptional writer . . . elegant and always intelligent in his spiritual accounting." --Los Angeles Times

"Tuten's language is supple, elegant, and wonderfully descriptive. He is also very funny." --Los Angeles Review of Books

"Tuten has managed to reinvent himself in one stylistically daring work after another." --Cleveland Review of Books

"A gifted, resourceful writer: an old master." --Kirkus Reviews

"No matter whether Tuten is chronicling the creative or romantic lives of his characters, he renders their struggles with a sense of hope." --Publishers Weekly

About the Author

Frederic Tuten is the author of six novels, including The Door at Midnight; two short story collections, including The Bar at Twilight; and the memoir My Young Life. Among other honors, Tuten has received a Guggenheim Fellowship and the American Academy of Arts and Letters Award for Distinguished Writing. He lives in New York.