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The Devil Walks at Midnight: A Twenty-Mile Bottom Tale
"Magical. Breathtaking. A true original." –Peggy Webb, USA Today bestselling author of The Language of Silence From the bestseller author of The Lost Page. In Twenty Mile Bottom, Mississippi, a grandmother mysteriously disappears. Her 18-year-old grandson, Roy Gene, smells a rat and launches his own investigation. Unbeknownst to him is a domestic terrorist plot masked by a renegade religious cult run by a gypsy fortuneteller and his alcoholic evangelist grandfather. The grandfather's infamous Halloween service, The Devil Walks at Midnight is the emotional lynch pin to a corrupt theology of fear that keeps everyone in line... except Roy Gene's grandmother... and Roy Gene. Others smell a rat, too. Federal investigator Chase Hightower, probing why Twenty Mile Bottom has over 500 disability cases of paranoid schizophrenia, crosses paths with Roy Gene and the two join forces. As conspiracies unravel and murders are solved, all hell, literally, breaks loose as Twenty Mile Bottom goes up in a cataclysmic explosion and conflagration. The narrative takes the reader through a rollicking farcical world of hilarity and pathos, and of sin and redemption, with glimpses into the world of disability fraud, domestic terrorism, and unsung disability investigators.
- GenresMystery ThrillerFiction
330 pages, Kindle Edition
Published March 16, 2023
42 people are currently reading
2209 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
March 4, 2023
When the Government noticed that almost everyone and 20 mile bottom were receiving SSI checks for schizophrenia they sent people to investigate unfortunately those people never came back. So now they’re sending Chase Hightower he says he has ties to the community and claims to be the cousin of Axel Gibbons. Little does detective high tower know but he is picked the ring leader of the local cult. Axel preaches that people who really believe in God shouldn’t work and he brings out scripture from the Bible that he claims backs up his statement he also drinks. Him in a gypsy woman who only recently moved to the area lowered over the people of 20 mile bottom but not in an oppressive way but in a way where they feel like family a big lazy government check collecting family. Axel’s daughter Loyola and her husband Waddle have six children the daughters have done them proud their husbands do not work, but the two oldest boys have left for greener pastors and the youngest boy Jean Roy refuses to act crazy to get a check. His dream is to be a wrestler and he’s determined to make this dream come true. It’s because Jean Roy spent most of this time with his grandpa and moo moo his grandma who axle claims was recently stampeded by hungry pigs and was killed. Gene Roy does not believe this and he goes every day looking for a signed up with grandma. While this is going on Chase Hightower is all over 20 mile bottom and the cold is even had a meeting about it was mumu killed by pics or is there something more underhanded going on and will chase high tower solve the case or will he end up like the other investigators never to be seen again? I have never read a book by Joe Ed Morris before but I will definitely be reading more from him in the future. This book is a perfect mixture of intriguing, funny and everything that keeps you wanting to turn the page. This is such a crazy story and it’s written with smart dialogue and the momentum flows nicely and definitely makes you not want to put the book down I totally loved it! I received this book from NetGalley and black rose writing but I am leaving this review voluntarily please forgive any mistakes as I am blind and dictate my review.
March 17, 2023
A Gothic Tale of the Highest Order
Joe Edd Morris steeps the reader into the creepy, intriguing world of Twenty Mile Bottom, a place without cell phone coverage, without the normal rules of civilization, with great contempt for the American society that feeds it. The community has a ridiculously high number of documented cases of schizophrenia and other maladies that keep its members on the government dole.
The mysteries of Twenty Mile Bottom, embedded in the hard drinking, charismatic preacher Excell Ruthven and the beautiful gypsy fortune teller Sister Delphine, unfold artfully and amusingly through Morris’s formidable prose (if the prologue doesn’t hook you, I don’t know what will). So many of the chapters are alternately eloquent and hilarious that the reader encounters The Devil Walks at Midnight as one memorably crazed trip.
When he’s not attaining descriptive heights, Morris generally settles down to a sly, wry restrained style: “Often, between sessions with her customers, Delphine would sit in her living room and reflect on her little disabled kingdom, her valley of ragtag imbeciles and freaks. Often, she considered the irony. She was helping crazy and uneducated people get on disability, and many did not need her help. They could qualify on their own.”
The fraud investigator Chase Hightower and the 18-year-old alienated local savant Roy Gene Provence serve as the dual moral loci of the novel, both fearless and cagey, quixotically searching for redemption in this most inhospitable wilderness. And oh yeah, there’s the mysterious death of Roy’s grandma Mumu to investigate as well as the nefarious activities of a militant group. Accompanied by the aforementioned allegations of unemployment fraud and the community’s lurid history, these elements lead to one hell of a climax, where everything manages to simultaneously fall apart and come together.
Joe Edd Morris is a wonderful writer. I’ve read a half dozen of his novels, and he never disappoints. He occupies that sweet spot in literary fiction where a rip-roaring story is propelled forward by fully realized characters whom the reader cares about. Those meat-and-potatoes elements are elevated by Morris’s marvelous feel for language. His novels remind me of a meal straight from the kitchen of a master chef. Yes, you’re familiar with the ingredients, but they never tasted like this.
Bon Appetit!
Joe Edd Morris steeps the reader into the creepy, intriguing world of Twenty Mile Bottom, a place without cell phone coverage, without the normal rules of civilization, with great contempt for the American society that feeds it. The community has a ridiculously high number of documented cases of schizophrenia and other maladies that keep its members on the government dole.
The mysteries of Twenty Mile Bottom, embedded in the hard drinking, charismatic preacher Excell Ruthven and the beautiful gypsy fortune teller Sister Delphine, unfold artfully and amusingly through Morris’s formidable prose (if the prologue doesn’t hook you, I don’t know what will). So many of the chapters are alternately eloquent and hilarious that the reader encounters The Devil Walks at Midnight as one memorably crazed trip.
When he’s not attaining descriptive heights, Morris generally settles down to a sly, wry restrained style: “Often, between sessions with her customers, Delphine would sit in her living room and reflect on her little disabled kingdom, her valley of ragtag imbeciles and freaks. Often, she considered the irony. She was helping crazy and uneducated people get on disability, and many did not need her help. They could qualify on their own.”
The fraud investigator Chase Hightower and the 18-year-old alienated local savant Roy Gene Provence serve as the dual moral loci of the novel, both fearless and cagey, quixotically searching for redemption in this most inhospitable wilderness. And oh yeah, there’s the mysterious death of Roy’s grandma Mumu to investigate as well as the nefarious activities of a militant group. Accompanied by the aforementioned allegations of unemployment fraud and the community’s lurid history, these elements lead to one hell of a climax, where everything manages to simultaneously fall apart and come together.
Joe Edd Morris is a wonderful writer. I’ve read a half dozen of his novels, and he never disappoints. He occupies that sweet spot in literary fiction where a rip-roaring story is propelled forward by fully realized characters whom the reader cares about. Those meat-and-potatoes elements are elevated by Morris’s marvelous feel for language. His novels remind me of a meal straight from the kitchen of a master chef. Yes, you’re familiar with the ingredients, but they never tasted like this.
Bon Appetit!
May 30, 2023
Interesting book. Well written with developed characters and a very unusual plot. I enjoyed reading "The Devil Walks at Midnight" and have only one negative observation. The Halloween church service, along with Excell's sermon, were not relatable at all. I know that these kinds of groups exist, but I guess it was just too sudden, too short, and too removed from the rest of the story. Again, the characters and the lead-up were believable, but the sermon (the climax?) itself was just ... off. I'm not sure if that's the word, but with the increasingly intense first three-quarters of the book, it didn't feel plausible. I pretty much hated all the characters but for the two protagonists, which is a good thing when the people are fleshed out so well. Really liked the ending; it provided a sense of closure, even if there is to be a sequel. Would recommend.
July 3, 2023
I really enjoyed this book. I can visualize every person in this book. Also what Twenty Mile Bottom looks like. I’m from south Louisiana !!! I know people like this.
September 14, 2025
This was an interesting story but just not for me. 2.5 rated up.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews