One of South Florida Sun-Sentinel' s Best Mystery Books of 2019! Marilyn Stasio, New York Times Book Review Associated Press Chicago Tribune If She Wakes Michael Koryta gives readers not one or two but four formidable female leads...Koryta writes them with confidence, and each is someone to be reckoned with."—Shelf Awareness Bookpage BookRiot Publisher's Weekly Kirkus Tampa Bay Times Crime Reads Booklist
…an edgy suspense story by Michael Koryta that brilliantly plays on the primal fear of being buried alive.
The New York Times Book Review - Marilyn Stasio
03/11/2019
At the start of this taut thriller from bestseller Koryta (How It Happened ), the car in which Tara Beckley, a student at Maine’s Hammel College, was driving Professor Amandi Oltamu before they parked on a bridge is struck by a car driven by Carlos Ramirez. Oltamu, who was on his way to deliver the keynote address at a talk related to his work on batteries and solar panels, is killed, and Tara ends up paralyzed, conscious but unable to communicate. Insurance investigator Abby Kaplan, who’s employed by Hammel, probes the fatal collision. Why Tara chose to stop on a bridge nowhere near her destination is a puzzle. College officials are hoping to avoid any liability for Oltamu’s death and Tara’s injuries, a prospect that seems likely when Ramirez admits to having been on his cellphone at the time of the accident. But when Ramirez is shot to death, Abby begins to suspect that something more sinister is at work than distracted driving, and that Tara may have some answers. Adept at creating Hitchcockian moments, Koryta keeps the suspense high throughout. Agent: Richard Pine, Inkwell Management. (May)
Koryta keeps the action fast and furious, tempered with his characters' determination to persevere against all odds.
Another superb effort...a nail-biter throughout.
A good thriller to kick up your feet and read.
In If She Wakes Michael Koryta gives readers not one or two but four formidable female leads...Koryta writes them with confidence, and each is someone to be reckoned with.
Koryta again shows his affinity for smoothly melding sophisticated action with solid character development—even when one of the individuals is in a coma…as it moves to a surprising finale.”
Instantly gripping, with realistic action, a breath-snatching twist, and a few untied ends that hopefully signal a sequel.
Koryta keeps the action fast and furious, tempered with his characters’ determination to persevere against all odds.”
An edgy suspense story...that brilliantly plays on the primal fear of being buried alive.
New York Times Book Review Marilyn Stasio
Koryta tries his hand at psychological suspense with excellent results.
it's the human element, the stories of two young women trying to reclaim their lives, that makes If She Wakes so compelling.
An edgy suspense story by Michael Koryta that brilliantly plays on the primal fear of being buried alive.”
New York Times Book Review
Adept at creating Hitchcockian moments, Koryta keeps the suspense high throughout.
There’s something creepy about the voice that narrator Robert Petkoff has chosen for Dax, this thriller’s young villain. Sounding a little like Tony Perkins in PSYCHO, Dax, a contract killer, radiates a sociopathic nonchalance that—thanks to Petkoff’s articulation—is almost likable. If only he weren’t trying to kill the novel’s protagonists, Abby, a disgraced stunt driver reduced to insurance investigator, and Tara, a hospitalized college student in a non-communicative state of paralysis known as “locked-in syndrome.” These women prove to be resourceful, tenacious, and, in Abby’s case, hell on wheels. Author Michael Koryta hits the thriller buttons—women in jeopardy, twisted killer, protagonists with physical and emotional handicaps—and Petkoff narrates it all in stride, bringing particular excitement to the stunt driving sequences. R.W.S. © AudioFile 2019, Portland, Maine
There’s something creepy about the voice that narrator Robert Petkoff has chosen for Dax, this thriller’s young villain. Sounding a little like Tony Perkins in PSYCHO, Dax, a contract killer, radiates a sociopathic nonchalance that—thanks to Petkoff’s articulation—is almost likable. If only he weren’t trying to kill the novel’s protagonists, Abby, a disgraced stunt driver reduced to insurance investigator, and Tara, a hospitalized college student in a non-communicative state of paralysis known as “locked-in syndrome.” These women prove to be resourceful, tenacious, and, in Abby’s case, hell on wheels. Author Michael Koryta hits the thriller buttons—women in jeopardy, twisted killer, protagonists with physical and emotional handicaps—and Petkoff narrates it all in stride, bringing particular excitement to the stunt driving sequences. R.W.S. © AudioFile 2019, Portland, Maine
★ 2019-02-19
Slowly emerging from the coma she's been in since a black cargo van rammed the car she was using to transport a visiting professor, killing him, Maine college senior Tara Beckley is targeted by a ruthless young hit man.
After the driver of the van admits his guilt, police rule the collision a simple wreck. But it doesn't take long for insurance investigator Abby Kaplan, a former racer and stunt driver who knows how cars behave at high speeds, to determine that this was no accident. She responds emotionally to Tara and her family; Abby's boyfriend in Los Angeles was left in a coma after a reckless joy ride she took him on ended badly. The bad news for the bad guys, who are desperate to get their hands on a device that was in the professor's possession, is that Tara is now conscious and alert and able to communicate by moving her eyes. Dax Blackwell, the boyish, creepily calm gunman (whose father, Jack, an Australian assassin, died in Koryta's Those Who Wish Me Dead ), must not only get past Abby to get to Tara, he also has to contend with Tara's fiercely protective sister, Shannon. It's a measure of how good this book is that the chilling, masterfully sustained suspense is only one of its standout achievements. Koryta never brushes off anyone's death; he makes you feel for the victims. The relationship between Tara and her sibling is beautifully nuanced, full of revealing details going back to their childhood. And Koryta's (How It Happened , 2018, etc.) fans will surely appreciate the suggestion of a sequel.
Koryta has never been better than with this knuckle-biting thriller.
