Check out my interview with Michael Koryta in August 2012 >>http://more2read.com/review/interview-with-michael-koryta/The main protagonist a film maker needs to define and separate visions and dreams with reality. For a living, while not working on a movie, he made tribute videos, wedding videos etc for private clients and some malevolent insidious presence seems to call him to a little job of putting together a tribute video for a dying man. It may be a project that could hold some meaning and he would like doing, but as the skeletons in the cupboard come out it’s a job he will possibly regret. He needs to visit a town to do research and piece together the past, he is being paid a nice sum for the job. There are others also doing their research, a graduate documenting the history of black people in the area, and a storm hunter seeking out extreme climates. These people, he crosses paths with, will be important to his research. There’s talk of a wonder juice or really a wonder water, Pluto water. Taste at your peril! Once tasted he finds himself asking many questions on it’s origin and it’s real influence. The dark past of this land will once more be relived with a harrowing and nightmarish potency.Will there be more blood in this historical and creepy locale.Koryta has crafted another great story with supernatural elements. He has yet again cleverly knitted into the framework of a modern setting a haunting dark page from history with great atmospheric presence. Entertaining and hypnotic reading. “The town where he was born, and where I want to send you, is in southern Indiana, a truly odd place, and beautiful. Have you ever heard of French Lick?” “Larry Bird, “he said, and she laughed and nodded. “That’s the general response, but at on point it was one of the great resorts in the world. There are two towns there, actually, West Baden and French Lick, side by side, and they each have a hotel that will take your breath away. Particularly the one in West Baden. It’s unlike anything I’ve ever seen, and yet it’s built out in the middle of nowhere, this tiny town in farm country.” “Crazy, a voice whispered in Eric’s mind, you’re going insane. Truly, literally out of your mind. Seeing things that aren’t there is one thing, but you had a conversation that wasn’t there, buddy. That’s the sort of thing that only happens to-“ “It’s strange,’ she said eventually. “Don’t you think it’s strange? The way it stays cold, the way it…I don’t know, feels. There’s something off about it. And it is the only thing-and I mean the only thing-that he had from childhood. My husband told me that he kept it in a locked drawer in his bedside table, and said the bottle was a souvenir from his childhood and that no one was allowed to touch it. As you can see, it meant a lot to him for some reason. That’s why I’m so curious.” “They passed cattle farms and a group of Amish men working beside a barn. The countryside here was rolling as if tossed by an unseen ocean, no flat fields as there were in Illinois and the northern half of Indiana. The terrain here was closer to what you’d find on the south side of the Ohio River, where Kentucky’s rolling bluegrass fields edged into foothills and then became mountains.”Review with book trailer and author video also @ http://more2read.com/review/so-cold-the-river-by-michael-koryta/
Eric Shaw, a failed documentary maker is now trying to make a living filming weddings and funerals when he receives a strange request from a woman. Alyssa Bradford wants him to make a film about the life of her dying father in law, 95-year-old Chicago millionaire Campbell Bradford. She offers Eric a very generous amount of money to travel to West Baden in Indiana to trace Campbell’s early years for the film. Alyssa also gives him a small bottle of water which the dying Campbell had kept his entire life.The water, called Pluto Water, is from the mineral springs at West Baden and in its day, was rumoured to have miraculous healing powers. Eric accepts the job and heads to West Baden and its neighbouring town the delightfully named French Lick with $5,000 in advance payment in his pocket and the bottle of Pluto Water which is strangely icy cold in the heat of Indiana.Shaw gets curious and tastes the water and he begins to see strange things, horrifying things. It seems the town of West Baden has dark untold secrets and harbours an evil that lusts to regain its lost glory.West Baden is famed for its West Baden Springs Hotel which on its construction in 1902 was called 'The Eight Wonder of the World' with its 200 foot high dome atrium. When Eric he sees the West Baden’s spectacular rotunda, Eric thinks of Stephen King and “The Shining” and starts smiling. “It had everything a filmmaker desired — beauty, grandeur, size, history and, at least for Eric tonight, a King-size dose of creepy,” Brilliant! Similarities to Stephen King are mentioned in many so reviews and I can see why... a town with secrets, lots of spooky menace, solid storytelling which flows along nicely and well drawn characters.However I did think that there were perhaps too many diverse characters that seemed superfluous to the story and it was as if once the author had introduced them he didn’t really know what to do with them all!I loved the character of Anne McKinney, a tenacious 86 years old, repository of the town’s history and amateur meteorologist. She begins to notice a change in the weather since Eric’s arrival; maybe the storm, ‘The Big One’ she's been predicting and waiting for all her life will finally make an appearance. "I've always connected it more to the weather myself...there's something different in this valley...You can feel it in the wind now and again, and on the edge of a summer storm, or maybe just before ice comes down in the wintertime. There's something different. And charge is the best word for it. There's a charge, all right."A good, solid piece of American Gothic that slowly pulls you in and once it has you, the story builds like an impending storm, full of threat and menace.
What do You think about So Cold The River (2010)?
Wow! I thought this might be just another mundane so-so story, but after a few pages I began to realize how cleverly the author snaked his way into this story. Mystical, thrilling, and definitely chilling--this is a read you won't want to do after dark. No kidding--things will go bump in the night, causing you to put the book away until daylight. This, then, is a gripping tale that will have you shivering and reaching for the light switch at every creak in the floor, every knock in the wall.Michael Koryta has developed a world of fantasy mixed with reality that has you wondering after a while if this really did happen, or if it is indeed fiction. In the backwoods of Indiana, a pair of towns built around a plethora of sulfur springs, have lots of mysterious things going on. When a down-and-out film maker is asked to create an interview style video chronicle of a rich man's childhood in the area, he doesn't hesitate to accept the job. It gets complicated, however, when certain dates don't match, and some very surrealistic events occur. Are they ghosts that the sometimes psychic Eric Shaw is seeing? Or are they visions of the past? Unwisely drinking some of the water bottled over fifty-years before, he begins to have headaches and nightmares, and all manner of physical and psychological problems. The characters are so well defined the book cannot help but be an instant page-turner. The plot is solid and reads smoothly from page one to the last.Highly Recommended.
—Diane
Warning: I really enjoy Michael Koryta’s work; I have read his five other novels and must confess to really enjoying them. I was pumped when I received the news that he had a new novel in the pipe and looked forward to the release date. The thing I was not excited about was that my two favorite characters of his are nowhere to be seen. So Cold the River is billed as standalone novel of suspense; I think that the description sells it short.Here is a part of the jacket that describes the plot of the novel: “It started with a beautiful woman. As a gift for her husband, Alyssa Bradford approaches Eric Shaw to make a documentary about her father-in law, Campbell Bradford, a ninety-five-year–old millionaire whose past is wrapped in mystery. Eric grabs the job even though there are few clues to the man’s past- just the name of the town where he grew up and an antique water bottle he’s kept his entire life. In Bradford’s hometown, Eric discovers an extraordinary history- a glorious domed hotel where movie stars, presidents, athletes, and mobsters once mingled, and mineral springs whose miraculous water cured everything from insomnia to malaria. Neglected for years, the resort has been restored to its former grandeur just in time for Eric’s stay.”I am a fan as I have mentioned so there is one other bit of info on Koryta I want to throw out there. He has won the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for best mystery/thriller for his last novel Envy the Night, and has earned nominations for the Lincoln Perry series: Edgar, Shamus & Quill Awards. I think this is up there with his best work. The element of his writing I enjoy the most is the way he gets me to be emotionally involved in his central characters. Very quickly into the novel there is something tangible in Eric Shaw that makes me root for him as he peels apart the layers of this mystery. I am just getting my feet wet in this genre of novel The paranormal type thing is growing on me, but I have no real baseline to compare this work. I just know I enjoy his work and style.So Cold the River is definitely a work of suspense as it is gripping from the beginning and doesn’t stop .I am amazed again at his ability to challenge himself and be a force in a different category of novel. I am not hesitating to say give this one a go. I have had it in my Goodreads –to read- list since I heard of its release date. Who is your favorite Michael Koryta character? Lincoln Perry, Frank Temple or Eric Shaw? What are you reading today? Check us out and become our friend on Facebook. Go to Goodreads and become our friend there and suggest books for us to read and post on. You can also follow us on Twitter, Book Blogs, and also look for our posts on Amazon. Did you know you can shop directly on Amazon by clicking the Gelati’s Store Tab on our blog? Thanks for stopping by today; we will see you tomorrow. Have a great day
—Giovanni Gelati
A new author for me and I was intrigued by the review--any book that involves elements of the paranormal and mystery without having actual aliens, etc. I am intrigued. The premise involves a mysterious bottle of water which appears to have properties that allow a young film maker to "see" visions of past events. Things happen that are not explainable by any logical means. I found it an interesting story that kept me wanting to know the ending. It is in the Stephen King type tradition but not on that scale. I might give this a 3.5 if the rating scale allowed and I will likely read his next novel for a relaxing spell between more taxing fare.This was a library book.
—Sue
