Max Booth III is a sick son of a gun. I say that as a high compliment. His new work attracted my attention when it was described to me as being a cross between “Stranger Things” and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. That isn’t entirely accurate; it is more than that, notwithstanding that its title is more reminiscent of an F. Scott Fitzgerald tome than a Robert McCammon novel. Gentle title or not, TOUCH THE NIGHT will give you waking nightmares.

The book is set in the year 2005 in the small town of Percy, Indiana. It centers on two fledgling 12-year-old juvenile delinquents, Joshua Washington and Alonzo Jones. It’s one of those somewhat mismatched friendships that, at the cusp of adolescence, works after a fashion. Alonzo thinks up the bad stuff to do, and Joshua goes along with it. Joshua’s parents aren’t wild about the friendship; they don’t care much for either Alonzo or his mother.

"The narratives, which eventually join up, move very quickly, so much so that it is difficult to tap the reading brakes because you’ll want to find out what happens next, even though you probably don’t want to know."

Things get rolling right away when the boys sneak out of Alonzo’s house during a sleepover. They break some windows and rob a convenience store before they are apprehended. Joshua and Alonzo think that they have been caught by the police, but as much as they dislike law enforcement, they get a sinking feeling in the pits of their stomachs when the old-style police cruiser passes right by the station and takes them out into the country to an extremely strange, dangerous and horrific place.

Meanwhile, Alonzo’s mom and Joshua’s parents are wondering where their sons are. The narrative switches back and forth between the two mothers, who gradually develop a camaraderie born of necessity, and Joshua and Alonzo, who realize that they are in major danger beyond anything that they --- or anyone else, really --- can comprehend. The moms are getting stonewalled by the local sheriff and come to realize that possibly there is more to his inaction than simple heard-it-all-before indifference.

Slowly but surely, it dawns on them that something is happening in Percy that is making it even stranger than it normally is. It appears that their chances of finding their sons are somewhere between slim and none, and slim just left Percy. Both narratives have their characters hopping and skipping across flaming lily pads with rabid alligators in hot pursuit. Actually, the book isn’t exactly that tame. We assume that the people who survive to the end will never be quite right again. If what we are told here is correct, neither will anything else.

TOUCH THE NIGHT is quite graphic in detail --- I mean, it is a horror novel --- but Booth can seriously write. The narratives, which eventually join up, move very quickly, so much so that it is difficult to tap the reading brakes because you’ll want to find out what happens next, even though you probably don’t want to know. I’ll predict right now that this book will be shortlisted for all of the Best Horror Novel lists. Thanks to Booth’s cinematic style, it also should be adapted for video, one of those series that premieres on Netflix on Friday and everyone watches all weekend.