How It Happened

Starred review from March 5, 2018
With this searing look at an investigator’s obsessive efforts to close a case that has reawakened childhood demons, bestseller Koryta (Rise the Dark) has produced his most powerful novel in years. FBI agent Rob Barrett feels he has “a firm sense of the truth and no evidence to back it up” after he extracts an unsubstantiated confession from 22-year-old Kimberly Crepeaux, who admits to a role in killing Jackie Pelletier, the daughter of a prominent fisherman in Port Hope, Maine, and Jackie’s boyfriend, Ian Kelly. In fact, Kimberly, who has a reputation for being a liar, provided incorrect details about where their bodies could be found. Still, Barrett, an inexperienced agent with a reputation as a superior interrogator, credits Kimberly’s account. According to her, her co-conspirator, 29-year-old Mathias Burke, a “local source of pride” who has a successful landscaping and remodeling business, first ran Jackie down with his truck and then bashed Ian’s head in before dumping their corpses in a pond. As Barrett, who knew Burke growing up in Port Hope, tries to ferret out the truth, certain aspects of the case revive painful memories of his mother’s inexplicable death when he was eight. Koryta, when he’s at the top of his game, has few peers in combining murder mysteries with psychological puzzles. Author tour. Agent: Richard Pine, Inkwell Management.

March 1, 2018
Award-winning and best-selling master of suspense Koryta introduces a bold and determined character in his thirteenth novel (after Rise the Dark, 2016). Rob Barrett, an FBI interrogation specialist, offers to take on a case in a sleepy coastal town in Maine because he has connections in the area. He believes the vividly detailed confession of a heroin-addicted ex-con, Kimberly Crepeaux, who admits complicity in the disappearance of a local young couple, whom Kimberly claims were murdered in a drug-fueled hit-and-run. His investigation finds no evidence to support her wild story, and what he does find contradicts it in every detail. Despite bureau censure and attempts on his life, Barrett perseveres with the assistance of an interesting assortment of townies and law-enforcement officials. Barrett's rediscovered lost love, Liz Street, is a keeper. Koryta excels at action set in remote places, and fans of William Kent Krueger and C. J. Box will enjoy this one.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2018, American Library Association.)

Starred review from March 15, 2018
Boston FBI agent Rob Barrett gets himself sent to Port Hope, Maine, the town where his grandfather lived and where he spent his childhood summers, to help crack the case of a young couple's murder, which appears to have been committed by a childhood antagonist of Barrett's.To the surprise of local cops who haven't been able to get 22-year-old drug addict Kimberly Crepeaux to utter a word about the murders of Jackie Pelletier and Ian Kelly since she turned herself in and admitted she was part of it, interrogation specialist Barrett quickly gets her to open up about everything. She swears the killer was Mathias Burke--despite his reputation as "the paragon of the peninsula"--a local man who had built up a large landscaping and caretaking business. Kimmy says Mathias forced her and her friend Cass Odom to help him dump the bodies in a pond, but when divers can't find any corpses, evidence points to another suspect, and a humiliated Barrett is forced to admit Kimmy must be lying. He's reassigned to Montana--to the taunting delight of Mathias. Months later, after having received repeated phone messages from Kimmy, who's just out of jail, and from Jackie Pelletier's pleading father, Barrett returns to Maine to resume his investigation on the sly. There, he has his eyes opened to the lethal toll of a heroin blend that was responsible for Cass' death three days after Jackie and Ian's murders. The only questions are how Mathias is connected to all those deaths and what price Barrett will pay in his pursuit of the truth. Is Koryta capable of telling a less-than-gripping tale? This book may not be as ambitious as his best efforts (including Rise the Dark, 2016), but it is flawless, unpredictable storytelling streaked with his usual dark undercurrents.Crime fiction doesn't get any more enjoyable.

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Starred review from March 15, 2018

In Koryta's (Rise the Dark) new thriller, FBI agent Rob Barrett must solve a double murder in Port Hope, ME. The story begins with local troublemaker Kimmie Crepeaux telling Barrett, an interrogation specialist, what happened, how a hit-and-run turned into a murder. Kimmie gives precise details about the event from start to finish, including where the bodies of local girl Jackie Pelletier and boyfriend Ian Kelly were dumped in a local pond. The only problem is that nothing Kimmie has said is backed by evidence. Especially because the main culprit she names is local caretaker and beloved resident Mathias Burke. As the only person who believes Kimmie's confession, Barrett begins to make enemies among the local residents and law enforcement. As with many of Koryta's recent novels, his main characters are men with hidden rage they've been struggling with since their childhoods. VERDICT Fans of Koryta's previous works, readers who enjoy rogue investigators as protagonists, and devotees of murder mysteries will enjoy this enthralling tale. [See Prepub Alert, 11/1/17.]--Jason L. Steagall, Gateway Technical Coll. Lib., Elkhorn, WI

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