The Silent Hour

Fresh off the critical acclaim of his Los Angeles Times Book Prize-nominated Envy the Night, Michael Koryta returns with a blistering new installment in the Lincoln Perry series: The Silent Hour.

Whisper Ridge
Home to Dreams
October 2, 1992--April 12, 1996

So reads the strange epitaph carved beside the door of the home called Whisper Ridge, a multi-million-dollar piece of architectural majesty that once housed the beginnings of a unique program for paroled murderers. The program never got off the ground, however, despite how passionate a woman named Alexandra Cantrell, daughter of a notorious Mafia don, and her husband, Joshua, had been about it. Still uninhabited twelve years later, the house remains as a strange monument to dangerous secrets, falling into ruin as the forest grows up around it.

While the couple's abrupt exit was unusual, it was also not regarded as suspicious--until the bones of Alexandra's husband are found buried in the woods.

Private investigator Lincoln Perry isn't thrilled about the situation, or his client: Parker Harrison served fifteen years for murder but claims Alexandra's intervention saved his life. Now he wants to find her--and he's not the only one.

What seems at first like the simplest of jobs proves to be an undertaking that will challenge both Perry's abilities as a detective and his commitment to that calling. With a new partner to train and a case that leads straight to the heart of the Cleveland organized crime scene, Perry finds himself glancing over his shoulder at every turn, pushing the bounds of safety even as he backs away.

Once again Michael Koryta has crafted an intricate, lightning-paced thriller, ratcheting up the tension as he explores just how dangerous the offer of a second chance can be. The latest installment in the Lincoln Perry series, which the Chicago Tribune calls "addictively readable," marks another step forward in his incredible career.

MICHAEL KORYTA’s first novel, Tonight I Said Goodbye, was published when he was just twenty-one. He lives in Bloomington, Indiana, where he began working as a newspaper reporter and for a private investigator while still in high school. Tonight I Said Goodbye won the St. Martin’s Press/Private Eye Writers of America Contest for first novel and the Great Lakes Book Award for best mystery, and was a finalist for the Edgar Award for best first novel. His other novels include Envy the Night (winner of the 2008 mystery/thriller Los Angeles Times Book Prize), The Silent Hour, and Those Who Wish Me Dead. His novels have been translated into more than a dozen languages.