In the summer of 1978, six employees of a Sirloin Stockade buffet restaurant found themselves forced into a walk-in freezer during a robbery, then executed, leaving no witnesses. The shocking events and resulting nine-month, nationwide manhunt left a deep scar in the psyche of Oklahoma City residents and served as inspiration for a new novel coming this October by English Professor and OKC City Councilor James Cooper.

Moonlit Massacre, Cooper's debut novel, draws inspiration from one of Oklahoma's most notorious crimes as well as other unsolved murders in the same time frame to knit together a story of a community gripped with fear. Rather than focus on the assailants, Cooper explores a young city rocked by tragedy.

Moonlit Massacre presents a diverse Oklahoma landscape overlooked by national news, utilizing elements of true crime, literary horror, and historical fiction to focus on the inner lives of Oklahomans from marginalized backgrounds. To bring this story to life, Cooper dedicated years to researching Oklahoma history and the Stockade murders before completing a Creative Writing MFA at Oklahoma City University. Similar books include Berney's November Road, Killers of the Flower Moon, Devil in the White City, the works of Stephen Graham Jones, and Jane Harper's The Dry.

While pursuing an MA in English at Oklahoma State University, James Cooper received an award from The Society of Professional Journalists for his column in OSU's O'Collegian concerning the need for federal hate crimes legislation. Cooper's essay on the 2013 tornado that devastated Moore, Oklahoma, "An Oklahoma Perspective on Tornado Alley," appeared in the Huffington Post. The Oklahoma Gazette published Cooper's 2011 two-part cover story on the history of OKC's LGBTQ community, "From Closet to Community." Advocate Magazine named Cooper one of its June 2020 "Champions of Pride." The New York Times profiled his 2019 campaign.

Cooper won re-election on Valentine's Day February 2023 to a second term with more votes during a traditional election than any OKC council candidate in, at least, 14 years. Currently, Cooper teaches English and Film Studies as the Artist in Residence at Oklahoma City University, where he's taught courses on writing and horror, focusing particularly the slasher and occult subgenres.

"Moonlit Massacre is a powerful, deeply-imagined meditation on violence, grief, race, and home. James Cooper has written a novel as engaging as it is thoughtful." - Lou Berney, Edgar Award-winning author of November Road