The Cypress House

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From BooklistAfter making his name with five strong crime novels, Koryta started adding chills to the thrills in the horror-tinged So Cold the River (2010). In this one, battle-hardened WWI veteran Arlen Wagner can foretell others’ deaths. With the Great Depression crippling the country, he works in the Civilian Conservation Corps and keeps his demons at bay with hard work and a flask full of whiskey. He and young friend Paul Brickhill are traveling by train to a new CCC camp in the Florida Keys when Arlen’s supernatural sense tells him they have to get off the train if they want to stay alive. They find themselves at Cypress House, a strangely empty fishing resort on the Gulf Coast run by beautiful but taciturn Rebecca Cady—and right in the middle of a vipers’ nest of small-town corruption and misery. Koryta is superb with mood and setting, and, if a bit too much of the plot is revealed in stories the characters tell to each other, the simmering tension erupts into a rolling boil by the bloody, spooky, and satisfying ending. HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: Koryta’s stock has only risen since his Edgar-nominated first novel. His first crossover supernatural thriller evoked comparisons to Stephen King and Peter Straub; a big promotional push this time will extend that momentum still further. --Keir Graff Review"_The Cypress House_ is a unique and entertaining blend of noir and paranormal suspense, with a tightly controlled supernatural thread as believable as the gunplay. Mr. Koryta is at the start of what will surely be a great career. He's now on my must-read list." (Dean Koontz, author of Lost Souls ) "_The Cypress House_ is a dazzling blend of suspense, the supernatural, and superb storytelling. What a gifted writer. Michael Koryta is the real deal." (Ron Rash, author of Serena ) "Michael Koryta is one of our new dynamos in the world of books, and in The Cypress House he spreads his range, wedding suspense with the supernatural in the eeriness of 1930s Florida. He uses the psychology of place to penetrate the human heart and delivers his tale of hurricanes and love and hauntings with great narrative force. Koryta's becoming a wonder we'll appreciate for a long time." (Daniel Woodrell, author of Winter's Bone ) "Michael Koryta has fashioned a great character in his reluctant prophet, Arlen Wagner, a good man who ends up with an awful lot of blood on his hands before the denouement of this deliciously dark tale. Koryta is a fantastic storyteller, and the many admirers of his previous novel, So Cold the River, will find similar chilly pleasures awaiting them here." (Scott Smith, author of A Simple Plan and The Ruins ) "Michael Koryta's command of story, character, and language put him in an elite group of writers at work today: Elmore Leonard, Michael Connelly and Lee Child to name a few. He is one of the very best writers out there. Don't try to label him, or stick him in a genre; that would be a disservice. Just read him, and soon you'll be saying Michael Koryta is among the best there is. And even that praise falls miserably short." (Ridley Pearson, author of In Harm's Way )