Michael Koryta's "The Prophet" is a stunner!

Summary:  Adam Austin hasn't spoken to his brother in years. When they were teenagers, their sister was abducted and murdered, and their devastated family never recovered. Now Adam keeps to himself, scraping by as a bail bondsman, working so close to the town's criminal fringes that he sometimes seems a part of them.

Kent Austin is the beloved coach of the local high school football team, a religious man and hero in the community. After years of near misses, Kent's team has a shot at the state championship, a welcome point of pride in a town that has had its share of hardships.

Just before playoffs begin, the town and the team are thrown into shock when horrifically, impossibly, another teenage girl is found murdered. When details emerge that connect the crime to the Austin brothers, the two are forced to unite to stop a killer-and to confront their buried rage and grief before history repeats itself again.

Michael Koryta, long hailed as one of the best young thriller writers at work today, has written his greatest novel ever-an emotionally harrowing, unstoppably suspenseful novel that proves why Michael Connelly has named him "one of the best of the best."


Particulars of the Book:
Publisher:  Little, Brown & Co.
Pages:  432
Available on Barnes & Noble
See more about author Michael Koryta here:  http://www.michaelkoryta.com


Author Profile :

Michael Koryta (pronounced ko-ree-ta) is the author of many novels, some of which have won the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, Great Lake Books Award, and St. Martin's Press/PWA Best First Novel prize, while also earning nominations for the Edgar, Quill, Shamus and Barry awards. In addition to winning the Los Angeles Times prize for best mystery, his novel Envy the Night was selected as a Reader's Digest condensed book. His work has been translated into nearly twenty languages. A former private investigator and newspaper reporter, Koryta graduated from Indiana University with a degree in criminal justice. He currently lives in St. Petersburg, Florida, and Bloomington, Indiana.


The Dame's Review :

I'm a tainted reviewer on this one, have to tell you right up front.  Michael Koryta is my latest favorite writer in this suspense thriller genre along with the likes of Dennis Lehane, William Landy, and  Jeffrey Deaver. 

There are many good writers who can tap into the genre, but there are few masters.  Michael Koryta is a master of it.  His work is complex and psychologically blistering!  It's pure joy to read.  He's so far above the average writer we nearly need to create his own category.  This is a thriller you won't expect, you won't see the outcome ahead, and you'll love the trip through the mineshaft to discover it.

The psychological characterizations of two distinctly different brothers who are torn by their own reactions to their only sister's horrific murder when they were all teenagers, is genius.  Koryta develops both of his characters in depth.  Adam, the bail bondsman who stepped from the gridiron as a rough, hard-hitting giant/hero when his sister was killed, continues to embrace his gladiator actions and attitudes.  While Kent took refuge in the coaching side of football, the thinking man's side; embracing the spiritual and the mind-over-matter concepts while directing those who would use their hearts and bodies to win the game.  Koryta employs both these men and their persona's to catch a killer who seems to "copycat" the kidnapping and murder of their sister in the new death of one of the coach's football hero's girlfriends.

The psychology of the killer is also creative and engrossing.  Koryta's development of a sociopath/psychopath is methodical and fearsome.  It's not until the last pages of the book that I finally put together all of the meanings of "The Prophet."

While I was initially yawning about football "plays," because I'm not a fan of the technical per se, I could see that they were necessary to understanding why the Coach and the Gladiator were making their choices in approaches toward the killer of the girl.  Once I got hold of that fact, the football aspects seemed to flow well for me. 

"The Prophet" ultimately, is not just a book about a serial killer or a psychopath, but it is the astute study of a family torn apart and changed by the actions of one.  It's the story of the ultimate sacrifices made by that family; the psychological tortures they endure and how it shapes their lives, and the outcomes of that.  It's also the story of every person's fantasy..."What would happen if a family member of a tortured and murdered child got to stalk and kill the murderer?"

This is a book you won't forget, and one you'll be recommending to everyone.  Men and women alike will love the book.  It's already on my Christmas list for my family.

5 perfect stars!          Go out and get it for the weekend!!

Deborah/TheBookishDame

"Ashen Winter" by Mike Mullin~Warning! Super Volcano Eruption Dystopian!

Where will you be when Yellowstone National Park's super volcano erupts? It will.  It's just a matter of when. Mike Mullin has written two very impressive YA fiction novels about the inevitable eruption in the United States's Mid-West that cripples and virtually destroys the country. His first book in the series, "Ashfall" and this one, "Ashen Winter" tells the story of a teenaged couple who learns to survive, along with others in a world completely rewritten by the volcano's devastation. It's a story of humanity's survival...of the end of Eden and the loss of innocence coupled with the struggle for sanity and hope, literally, amidst the ashes.  As always, it's love that's found to be the highest order of all things.

Mullin shows the evils of mankind in their most blatant...the "what ifs" at their worst. And, he shows the courage of women and men under duress, as well. Many times I found myself holding my breath, and then cheering for Darla, the stronger-than-the-men young woman, who is a genius at almost everything she puts her hand to including mechanics! Often, I clenched my teeth and shook my head in frustration at the stops and starts, the things and people that held back Alex, the teenager from whose eyes and ears we first experienced the disaster.  The characters running amok in these books are worthy of zombie-land!  The main characters, however, are salt-of-the-earth types who we can easily recognize among our friends and family.  The struggle to survive is the driving force of their lives.

This is a novel that's not easy to read in terms of it's plausibility. It's not easy to "hear." The Super Volcano eruption could happen. It might happen in our time..any day. What's for sure is that this is a set of books that would do well to be taught in public and private high schools throughout the United States! Forewarned is to be a little better prepared. Because if it ever happens...all bets are off and it's literally every single woman for herself.

5 stars blazing for this fabulous book!!


Summary :

It’s been over six months since the eruption of the Yellowstone supervolcano. Alex and Darla have been staying with Alex’s relatives, trying to cope with the new reality of the primitive world so vividly portrayed in Ashfall, the first book in this series. It’s also been six months of waiting for Alex’s parents to return from Iowa. Alex and Darla decide they can wait no longer and must retrace their journey into Iowa to find and bring back Alex’s parents to the tenuous safety of Illinois. But the landscape they cross is even more perilous than before, with life-and-death battles for food and power between the remaining communities. When the unthinkable happens, Alex must find new reserves of strength and determination to survive.

Here's an interesting YouTube video for you, but don't watch it if you're easily frightened:

 

More About Mike Mullin:

Mike Mullin’s first job was scraping the gum off the undersides of desks at his high school. From there, things went steadily downhill. He almost got fired by the owner of a bookstore due to his poor taste in earrings. He worked at a place that showed slides of poopy diapers during lunch (it did cut down on the cafeteria budget). The hazing process at the next company included eating live termites raised by the resident entomologist, so that didn’t last long either. For a while Mike juggled bottles at a wine shop, sometimes to disastrous effect. Oh, and then there was the job where swarms of wasps occasionally tried to chase him off ladders. So he’s really hoping this writing thing works out.

Mike holds a black belt in Songahm Taekwondo. He lives in Indianapolis with his wife and her three cats. ASHFALL is his first novel.

You might want to visit Mike on his website at:  http://mikemullinauthor.com

You may wish to purchase his books on:  Amazon    or  Barnes & Noble

From his website, you can follow him on Twitter and Facebook


Here's a trailer of his first book in this series:  "Ashfall"

I  hope we never see this sort of eruption of our society in our time, but it's always great to know there are those who will survive and that they may be the ones who represent the best within us.

Read "Ashfall" and "Ashen Winter," I know you'll love these books and so will the teens in your life.

Deborah/TheBookishDame