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SORROW'S ANTHEM
by Michael Koryta
St Martin's Minotaur, February 2006
320 pages
$22.95
ISBN: 0312340109


Buy in the UK | Buy in Canada

If you haven't read Michael Koryta yet, you're in for a treat. Think Robert Crais and Harlan Coben, with a dash of Charlie Huston-like righteousness married to some soft-core John Sandford. There are influences galore in Koryta's work, and I enjoyed every minute of it.

In SORROW'S ANTHEM (the title poignantly refers to ambulance sirens) Lincoln Perry, Koryta's young ex-cop private investigator, is assailed by the sudden murder accusation against his oldest friend. They've been estranged for years, a result of different life roads taken, and Perry's first instinct upon hearing his old friend is in major trouble is to seek him out and see if he can help.

That leads to more trouble than Perry and his partner, retired cop Joe Pritchard, could have ever expected. Before the book ends, Perry will have a life altering discovery -- you can't always make everything right. But he tries hard to do so.

The book starts with a seemingly simple premise -- Perry's friend Ed Gradduk is accused of a terrible arson and murder. Perry goes to find Ed, desperate for a chance to right an old wrong. Before he can tell the whole story in his defense, Ed is killed in a bizarre accident. Perry must find the truth and clear his friend's name, a name no one seems to want cleared.

I hesitate to go further with plot details; more information might ruin the story. And this book's story grows thicker with each page. The investigation into Ed's murder accusation and ultimate death opens deeper channels of deceit and corruption. Perry and his partner will put their lives on the line for the people they believe in, their fraternal sense of honor and duty are clear.

The whodunit is relatively obvious, but the joy of getting at the truth makes this novel special. The setting is strongly rendered -- the old neighborhood in Cleveland, full of ethnic sensibilities, shines. Koryta will only get better with age and experience, but he is already a force to be reckoned with.

Reviewed by J. T. Ellison, May 2006

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Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)


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