The Midnight Games
David Neil Lee
October 2015
212 pages | ISBN 978-1-894987-96-7
** Winner of the Kerry Schooley Award 2016 **
When Nate sneaks into Ivor Wynne Stadium to check out the midnight games that are keeping his neighbourhood up at night, he knew something wasn’t right, but he had no idea how strange, and deadly, things would be. In this thrilling young adult novel, set in gritty, post-industrial Hamilton, David Neil Lee blends the rich horror of H. P. Lovecraft with the pace of a modern mystery. Nate Silva has snuck into one of the rituals of the Resurrection Church of the Ancients, and soon his days and nights are dogged by ancient books, giant centipedes and geometric curses that bring death down upon you in the form of glowing hounds. The Midnight Games is a page-turner of a book, eerie and enthralling.
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Advance Praise
“H. P. has landed in the Hammer! The working-class grit of Hamilton, Ontario, crashes full tilt into the unspeakable gothic dread of Lovecraftian horror in The Midnight Games, and the results are enjoyably weird and wild. Featuring an unlikely assemblage of heroes (possibly including Providence’s favourite son himself), countless Hamilton touchstones and a clever take on Lovecraft that doesn’t shy away from the author’s more troublesome qualities, David Neil Lee’s novel is a very funny and unexpected addition to the Cthulhu mythos and the horror genre.”
– Evan Munday, author of The Dead Kid Detective Agency
Reviews
Book Review: David Lee’s The Midnight Games (Stephen Near, Beyond James, 07/03/2022)
"Lee couples his cult against the backdrop of the very real specter of citywide unemployment, loss of industry, and the desperate yearning for a bygone Hamilton. The haunting power of this city’s history, our famed civic pride taken to the fervent extreme, adds a sinister undertone to the Church’s endgame and raises the stakes for Lee’s young hero."
Articles
Taking CanLit into CanFantastic territory (Peter Darbyshire, Wolsak & Wynn, 26/08/2024)
Peter Darbyshire includes David's book in this cool roundup.
Read Hamilton (Open Book, 27/11/2023)
A wonderful gathering of Hamilton books in one place, including David's novel.
"Halloween horror, Hamilton-style" (Amy Kenny, Hamilton Spectator, 31/10/2015)
"Horror novels are very much novels of place. A good horror novel, like say Dracula, gives you such a strong sense of time and place," [Lee] says. "There's this sense of a dark side to Hamilton that I really felt could become something instead of just grimy and old and beat-up. It would also become sort of dark and mysterious and romantic in a sense."
"On Writing, with David Lee" (Grace O'Connell, Open Book Toronto, 29/10/2015)
“Spinning an engrossing young adult novel set in post-industrial Hamilton, David mines his gritty location as the perfect backdrop to Nate's strange and terrifying adventure. Full of ancient books and curses as well as Lovecraftian horror, The Midnight Games is the perfect Canadian Halloween read.”
"The Midnight Games" (The Midwest Book Review's Children Bookwatch, 22/02/2016)
"The Midnight Games" is a thrilling young adult novel, set in gritty, post-industrial Hamilton. Author David Neil Lee blends the rich horror of H. P. Lovecraft with the pace of a modern mystery. "The Midnight Games" will prove to be an enduringly popular addition to school and community library YA Fiction collections for young readers ages 12 to 18."
Excerpt
Videos
Lesley Stewart interviews David Neil Lee on CHCH's Morning Live.
About the Author
David Neil Lee was born and raised in Mission, BC. Upon receiving his BA in English from UBC, he moved to Toronto where he worked for the jazz magazine Coda and, with his wife, Maureen Cochrane, ran the publishing house Nightwood Editions. He also studied double bass and worked actively in Toronto avant-garde theatre, dance, and multi-media performances, as well as touring internationally and recording with the Bill Smith Ensemble, Leo Smith, and Joe McPhee. He is the author of The Battle of the Five Spot: Ornette Coleman and the New York Jazz Field (Mercury Press, 2006) and Commander Zero (Tightrope Books, 2012). David Lee lives in Hamilton with his family.
Other Titles by this Author
The Great Outer Dark (2023)
The Medusa Deep (2020)
The Battle of the Five Spot: Ornette Coleman and the New York Jazz Field (2014)
