The place where terror and insanity lie in wait for the unwary traveller. The place on a long dark road, where our reality ends and the unknown beckons.
Where our world ceases, and the Darkness begins. Where some can find the answers to their darkest questions. Where others find their worse nightmares come true.
One fateful, hot summer's evening it's a place on a motorway, miles from anywhere. Just after midnight, something collides head-on with the southbound traffic, creating a scene of the most terrible carnage, leaving eighty-seven people dead in the burning, twisted wreckage. And only seven survivors. Survivors who emerge unscathed from the catastrophe, but have somehow changed. For Harry Stark, mourning the loss of his family, even suicide cannot end his torment. There is no release in death from his pain, only a new and hideous ability to kill with a simple touch. The other survivors have inherited different powers. A long-distance lorry driver suddenly has the power to heal by the laying on of hands; an unscrupulous business man can now eliminate anyone who stands in his way; a woman is able to wreak revenge on the man who abused her as a child; while another can now escape from her brutal husband; and an artist finds he possesses the hideous power to drive men mad. Meanwhile, the Seventh Survivor is caught between two worlds, an agonised monstrosity stalking the night.
As Harry seeks to end the horror, it soon becomes apparent that his quest will ultimately take him back to the place where the nightmare began. A place Somewhere South of Midnight.
“Home grown writing talent Stephen Laws has done it again with his latest in the nasty and decidedly unfriendly nightmare world of horror, where if the meek are going to inherit the earth they'd better get on with it or something nasty will get there first. Laws, who gave up work as a local government officer for full-time writing several years ago, has added yet another richly-embroidered and superbly crafted novel to his output. Although Laws occasionally strays from his native North East for his backdrops he invariably returns home eventually, and Somewhere South of Midnight is set on the doorstep.
Laws has been called one of the most inventive young writers on the British horror scene, and he certainly qualifies for the description with this tale of searing heat and untimely death.
— EVENING CHRONICLE
“The ninth novel from the blood-soaked pen of Stephen Laws and continues the tradition of superb Horror fiction that we have come to expect from him. This time, however, the novel is constructed on a broader canvas and is perhaps more mainstream than his previous work …. 'Somewhere South of Midnight' is an entertaining and gripping tale of ordinary human beings caught up in something they don't understand. That they do ultimately make sense of it, and that the explanations make sense to the reader is an accomplishment in itself. As seems to be normal with a Laws novel, the ending brought a lump to my throat and a tear to my eye. There's not many authors who can do that, and I heartily applaud any that can. This is a brave and complex work from an author who consistently delivers the goods.”
— STARBURST
“One of the most inventive young writers on the British horror scene”
— THE TIMES
“You will place Stephen Laws in the first division of doom merchants after reading this yarn.”
— DRIFFIELD POST
