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The Cypress House
Michael Koryta

Black Bay Books
May 12th, 2011/ ISBN 978-0316053716
Mystery / Supernatural
Amazon

Reviewed by Susan Johnson


Arlen Wagner is a World War I1 veteran suffering from the nightmares born of the horrors he hads seen while in combat. He works and drinks his nightmares away while working with the Civil Conversation Corps during the harsh and cruel times of the great depression. Arlen is on the way to establish a new camp in the Florida Keys. Also traveling with him is his young friend Paul Brickham. They are traveling by train when Arlen begins to feel his supernatural gift kicking in. He sees skeletons where people’s bodies should be and smoke coming from the eyes of others that will soon be dead. He feels that if they don’t get off the train right away that they will surely die.

After escaping Arlen’s premonition on the train they find themselves at a beautiful old fishing resort on the coast of Florida. tThe resort, known as Cypress House, is almost deserted and is run and ran by Rebecca Cady, a beautiful but distant woman.

Not long after their arrival at Cypress House, the men soon realize that they have stumbled into a town full of corruption and misery and that they will be lucky to escape alive.

Michael Koryta has made a name for himself with his past books. His sense of time and setting are superb. He has taken the classic noir mystery and suffused it with supernatural horror and yet he has made it work.

Heads up to Stephen King, Peter Straub and all other horror writers, there is new competition on the block., Michael Kortya is crossing the lines and making it his.

Reviewed 2011
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