The Cypress House
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.
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Reviews
Gangsters, a silent but heroic drifter with second sight, and a whopper of a Florida hurricane. How can you go wrong?
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
Koryta's story positively breathes a sense of dread. You want to turn your head away but, of course, you can't. It's too good.
A supernatural mystery that intensifies the suspense by thickening the atmosphere . . . Koryta sets a beautiful scene
Koryta knows how to build tension and create a febrile atmosphere, and his story has a plausible setting. The result is a highly coloured novel with expertly managed paranormal trimmings. Koryta is a writer to watch.
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.
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.
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.
Koryta is one of the best of the best, plain and simple
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.
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.
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.
THE CYPRESS HOUSE is a dazzling blend of suspense, the supernatural, and superb storytelling. What a gifted writer. Michael Koryta is the real deal.
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.
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.
Fright-inducing fiction
Michael Koryta is a gifted storyteller . . . eerie, suspenseful, and pleasantly wicked.
An icy, terrifying winner. SO COLD THE RIVER puts an October chill in your blood by the end of the first chapter.
This book builds like a summer storm. Beautiful to watch until it shakes the house and knocks out the lights . . . masterful
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!