The Cypress House

Description

Arlen Wagner has seen it in men before - a trace of smoke in their eyes that promises imminent death. He is never wrong.When Arlen and his young companion Paul Brickhill are stranded at the Cypress House with a hurricane approaching, Paul won't abandon the boarding house's enigmatic mistress Rebecca to face the storm alone.But Arlen's gift warns him that if they stay too long, they may never leave.

Michael Koryta's Edgar Award-nominated first novel was published when he was just twenty-one and it was followed by four more straight thrillers and then his first supernatural thriller SO COLD THE RIVER in 2010. His works have been translated into twenty languages. He lives in Bloomington, Indiana, where he has worked as a newspaper reporter and private investigator, and in St. Petersburg, Florida.

Fast-paced and action-packed, SO COLD THE RIVER is good, unclean fun. Like Joe Hill, Michael Koryta is infusing the old-school supernatural horror novel with new blood. Drink up! * Stewart O'Nan on SO COLD THE RIVER * This book builds like a summer storm. Beautiful to watch until it shakes the house and knocks out the lights . . . masterful * Michael Connelly on SO COLD THE RIVER * An icy, terrifying winner. SO COLD THE RIVER puts an October chill in your blood by the end of the first chapter. * Dennis Lehane on SO COLD THE RIVER * Michael Koryta is a gifted storyteller . . . eerie, suspenseful, and pleasantly wicked. * Scott Smith on SO COLD THE RIVER * Fright-inducing fiction * Dan Simmons on SO COLD THE RIVER * You'll be hooked from the first sentence of this haunting thriller that twists like a water moccasin through the swamplands of Depression-era Florida, drenched in rain, blood, and evil. Jim Thompson noir with Stephen King spookiness. * Neil McMahon, author of Lone Creek and L.A. Mental * 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 * 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 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 * 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 * 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 * Koryta is one of the best of the best, plain and simple * Michael Connelly * Michael Koryta's rich storytelling skills in The Cypress House demonstrate writing at its very best. Following the huge success of So Cold The River, with such a spellbindingly brilliant - yet entirely different - novel, shows Koryta is here to stay... a tour de force that is destined to take a high place of honour in the pantheon of great, supernatural thrillers. * chrishigh blog * A wonderfully evocative novel. The narrative is sumptuous and atmospheric, just what I've come to expect from Michael Koryta... The Cypress House is by no means your average thriller. Koryta blends the supernatural with a dark psychological narrative, taut until its captivating conclusion. Few authors can command an audience like Koryta and yet again he delivers a magnificent yet exhausting novel educing the harsh realities of post-prohibition America - a must-read for sure. * milorambles blog * Koryta is incredibly adept and assured as a writer, and wonderfully evokes the swampy, sweltering claustrophobia of the deeply corrupt Depression era Corridor County. The Cypress House is a great read and firmly establishes Koryta as one of my 'must read' authors. * Crime and Publishing blog * A supernatural mystery that intensifies the suspense by thickening the atmosphere . . . Koryta sets a beautiful scene * New York Times Book Review on SO COLD THE RIVER * A striking scare story... a tale of swampland corruption and brutality mixed with a dose of the paranormal that makes it no surprise that Dean Koontz is one of Koryta's admirers... Never less than gripping and with the element of the supernatural blending strangely seamlessly with the murderous reality, Koryta has crafted a noir novel that simultaneously echoes of the 1948 film Key Largo, starring Humphry Bogart, and the Eagles' Hotel California. * The Times * What makes the novel so gripping, apart from Koryta's scalpel-sharp prose and eye for detail, is the characterisation of Wagner, a laconic drifter haunted by the past. Recommended. * Guardian * The tension is cranked up expertly by Koryta, who creates the perfect atmosphere. And like his hero, he possesses an unusual gift - the ability to write a sure-fire bestseller. * News of the World * Michael Koryta is one of the most exciting new voices in crime fiction. He stands out from the crowd by virtue of an easy elegance in his prose style, a consuming interest in America's turbulent history and a knack for successfully incorporating elements of the supernatural into his stories. This novel may be his best yet . . . [a] wonderfully gripping slice of prime Americana * Mail on Sunday * Koryta builds tension deftly and discreetly... Koryta gives us an intricate and satisfying thriller with a very human heart to its evil. He evokes post-Prohibition America, the grind and the grit and the poverty, with great skill. Koryta is better known in the US, where he's won a handful of prizes, but he deserves to make a name for himself here too. * Observer * Gangsters, a silent but heroic drifter with second sight, and a whopper of a Florida hurricane. How can you go wrong? * Stephen King *