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Novelist James Sallis reviews Private Midnight, by Kris Saknussemm, in the December issue of Fantasy & Science Fiction: "Saknussemm’s second novel, following upon the 500-page picaresque, post-apocalyptic satire Zanesville characterized by its author as “techno-theological post-American monster vaudeville. . . . Some readers will, I’m certain, find components out of kilter, horror elements overshadowing the embedded crime novel, Ritter’s interiority arrant; and some will object, on moral or aesthetic grounds, to such full-blown, graphic eroticism. But for me the balance of elements is wonderfully maintained. The detective work runs like a river through the whole, counterposing the weightiness of the fantastic; the biographical elements never go on too long, and fall in seamlessly; the teeter-totter of what is imagined or projected, what real, never falters. Private Midnight is, finally, a brilliant and brilliantly disorienting novel. Those sounds you hear beneath the floorboard? As with The Manual of Detection, they’re the sounds of a writer respecting and rooting deeply into the conventions— finding out what’s in there.I n interview, Kris Saknussemm has said: “I would always support the wild, deviant, and visionary work over the quiet, accomplished, and methodical.” And further along,

that “the greatest hope for American fiction that I see lies in the direction of ‘speculative’ fiction…mutant, hybrid forms.”What Greil Marcus termed that“old, weird America” is still with us, scouts. And it is perhaps never more with us than in fresh new work like Saknussemm’s."

P.P.O. Kane reviews Private Midnight, the acclaimed novel from Kris Saknussemm on The Compulsive Reader: "As an all-lights-blazing tour of one rogue cop’s interior hell, Private Midnight makes for a compelling psychological thriller. It is best seen, though, as a synthetic remolding of the crime novel, rather than a wholly original take on it. The ‘cult of woman’ or Fem Dom aspect is implicit in much hard-boiled fiction and many noir films (perhaps Hitchcock’s Vertigo, above all) . . . There is an old movie called The Seventh Victim, which like Private Midnight combines elements of detection and the supernatural. It ends with a woman, dressed for life and laughter, stepping out into the night. That is what we see. Yet what we hear is the sound of a chair falling – which is, as we know from previous frames, the sound of another less fortunate woman stepping off it and into a noose. We next hear the words, ‘I run to death and death meets me as fast. And all my pleasures are as yesterday.’ It is a stunning ending: elegiac, joyous, strange and perverse. Private Midnight has something of this same contradictory, impossible-to-process-all-at-once quality. Read it."

Kris Saknussemm takes the stage at Pete's Candy Store in Brooklyn on Saturday, April 25th (that’s this Saturday), at 6pm for a rare PERFORMANCE of his new novel Private Midnight. Yes, he performs. And he’ll be joined by the very amazing jazz saxophonist Eric Wyatt as well as a TBA keyboardist. This is not your usual reading. This is Private Midnight, people! We'll see you there! Pete's Candy Store is located at 709 Lorimer Street (Take L train to Lorimer. Walk North on Lorimer towards Conselyea. Keep walking. Venue is on your left.)

Here's a review of Kris Saknussemm's performance earlier this week in New York: "After a break, Amy returned to the podium to introduce new friend, painter, sculptor, and acclaimed cult novelist Kris Saknussemm. His latest novel, Private Midnight, she said, has been described as an "erotic supernatural thriller set in a noir crime world of jazz, junkies, and shadows from out of time." The promotional copy, she noted in an aside, came with a pair of plastic handcuffs, which said it all, and Saknussemm owned to it being pornography more than erotica—based on his selection, I'd say it's definitely kinky (as the joke has it, they use a feather, not a whole chicken)—but also called it a love story between a police detective and a beguilingly mysterious woman. It was one of the most unusual presentations in the Series' long history, as Kris’s darkly atmospheric passages were interspersed with jazz solos on tenor sax by Eric Watts while Saknussemm treated the audience to a bizarre display of performance art, tossing along the floor sex paraphernalia, lingerie, and face masks, and at one point, whipped the floor with a cat-o'-nine-tails. (Freund's radio listeners, said Goldschlager, were missing out on the performance.)" - Mark Blackman, SF Scope.

Next stop on the Private Midnight book tour is Booksmith in San Francisco on April 10, Changing Hands in Tempe, AZ on April 15, and Rio Rita in Austin, TX on April 17.

Kris Saknussemm takes the Private Midnight show on the road this week with three big events:

Powell's Books - Portland, OR, April 2, 7:30pm

Cherry Bleeds Happy Hour at The Knockout - San Francisco, CA, April 3 from 6:30

Borderlands Books - San Francisco, CA, April 4, 3pm

Here's a new blog review on Private Midnight: "This is one of those books that no matter how many times you read it, something new will pop out at you. What you think is going to be a detective story quickly turns into a soul searching experience when Det. Ritter meets Genevieve. Past experiences, sexuality and the supernatural all come into play. This book made me ask myself how much would you be willing to go outside of society's norms to be your true inner self? What would you be willing to give up and change? Could you stay sane in the process or would you become another statistic? Could you let go of not only your mistakes, but your entire life to be reborn? If you want to be freaked out and take a trip into your soul you should read this book."

Kris Sakussemm, author of the acclaimed sci-fi smash Zanesville, is back with a new novel, Private Midnight. This sexy, seedy look at the underbelly of life is crime noir for a new generation, and Publishers Weekly has given Private Midnight a starred review in next week's issue: "James Ellroy meets David Lynch inthis addictive mix of noir and supernatural horror from Saknussemm. Det. Birch Ritter investigates the suspected suicide of California real estate magnate Deems Whitney, who apparently doused his Mercedes with gasoline and died in the resultant explosion a day after changing his will to benefit his trophy wife and disinherit his grown children. Before the cop can interview Whitney’s widow, Ritter receives a cryptic message from his ex-partner that steers him to the enigmatic Genevieve Wyvern. Wyvern, who disconcerts Ritter with how well she knows his past, plunges him into a surreal world of bondage, domination and mind games. Despite being humiliated by Wyvern, Ritter finds himself unable to stay away from her lair. An unexpected and bizarre twist well into the novel jolts the fairly standard plot off the rails, but the powerful narrative voice will compel readers to follow."