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“And that is how it happened. Can we stop now?”
Kimberly Crepeaux is no good, a notorious jailhouse snitch, teen mother, and heroin addict whose petty crimes are well-known to the rural Maine community where she lives. So when she confesses to her role in the brutal murders of Jackie Pelletier and Ian Kelly, the daughter of a well-known local family and her sweetheart, the locals have little reason to believe her story.
Not Rob Barrett, the FBI investigator and interrogator specializing in telling a true confession from a falsehood. He’s been circling Kimberly and her conspirators for months, waiting for the right avenue to the truth, and has finally found it. He knows, as strongly as he’s known anything, that Kimberly’s story-a grisly, harrowing story of a hit and run fueled
by dope and cheap beer that becomes a brutal stabbing in cold blood-is how it happened. But one thing remains elusive: where are Jackie and Ian’s bodies?
After Barrett stakes his name and reputation on the truth of Kimberly’s confession, only to have the bodies turn up 200 miles from where she said they’d be, shot in the back and covered in a third person’s DNA, the case is quickly closed and Barrett forcibly reassigned. But something still nags at locals, and at a local newspaper reporter who’s been chasing the story as doggedly as Barrett himself.
Reminiscent of both the epic and adventurous early writing of Stephen King and the white-knuckled action of Lee Child (both of whom have anointed Koryta as the next great thriller writer), HOW IT HAPPENED is a frightening, tension-filled ride into the dark heart of rural America.
Kimberly Crepeaux is no good, a notorious jailhouse snitch, teen mother, and heroin addict whose petty crimes are well-known to the rural Maine community where she lives. So when she confesses to her role in the brutal murders of Jackie Pelletier and Ian Kelly, the daughter of a well-known local family and her sweetheart, the locals have little reason to believe her story.
Not Rob Barrett, the FBI investigator and interrogator specializing in telling a true confession from a falsehood. He’s been circling Kimberly and her conspirators for months, waiting for the right avenue to the truth, and has finally found it. He knows, as strongly as he’s known anything, that Kimberly’s story-a grisly, harrowing story of a hit and run fueled
by dope and cheap beer that becomes a brutal stabbing in cold blood-is how it happened. But one thing remains elusive: where are Jackie and Ian’s bodies?
After Barrett stakes his name and reputation on the truth of Kimberly’s confession, only to have the bodies turn up 200 miles from where she said they’d be, shot in the back and covered in a third person’s DNA, the case is quickly closed and Barrett forcibly reassigned. But something still nags at locals, and at a local newspaper reporter who’s been chasing the story as doggedly as Barrett himself.
Reminiscent of both the epic and adventurous early writing of Stephen King and the white-knuckled action of Lee Child (both of whom have anointed Koryta as the next great thriller writer), HOW IT HAPPENED is a frightening, tension-filled ride into the dark heart of rural America.
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Reviews
A high-concept thriller ... a gripping picture of the horror that could lurk in America's wide-open spaces.
A tough, uncompromising and elegantly written thriller that elevates Kortya to the must-read status of the likes of Child, Connolly, Coben and Deaver.
Is it possible we will be treated to some more Novak in the future? I don't know. What I do know is that Koryta's last three novels represent the high water mark for modern thriller writing and whatever he writes next I will be reading.
Michael Koryta is one hell of a writer, and HOW IT HAPPENED is one hell of a murder mystery. It's a tribute to Koryta's craftsmanship and skill that the reader knows who done it in the first chapter, but can't put the book down until the last layer of the onion is peeled away to reveal the truth at the core of this gripping tale.... A remarkable achievement that rises high above the genre.
This gripping and absorbing story about a protagonist coming to terms with his conflicted past, a lost love, and a crime determined not to be solved, could only be penned by Michael Koryta, whose sense of place, and insight into the human spirit, are unsurpassed.
How it Happened is precise and thrilling with an offbeat charm. Koryta in his finest moments is reminiscent of Stephen King . . . Terrific