So Cold the River: Book summary and reviews of So Cold the River by Michael Koryta

So Cold the River Summary

It started with a beautiful woman and a challenge. As a gift for her husband, Alyssa Bradford approaches Eric Shaw to make a documentary about her father-in-law, Campbell Bradford, a 95-year-old billionaire whose past is wrapped in mystery. Eric grabs the job even though there are few clues to the man's past - just the name of his hometown and an antique water bottle he's kept his entire life.

In Bradford's hometown, Eric discovers an extraordinary history - a glorious domed hotel where movie stars, presidents, athletes, and mobsters once mingled, and hot springs whose miraculous mineral water cured everything from insomnia to malaria. Neglected for years, the resort has been restored to its former grandeur just in time for Eric's stay.

Just hours after his arrival, Eric experiences a frighteningly vivid vision. As the days pass, the frequency and intensity of his hallucinations increase and draw Eric deeper into the town's dark history. He discovers that something besides the hotel has been restored - a long-forgotten evil that will stop at nothing to regain its lost glory. Brilliantly imagined and terrifyingly real, So Cold the River is a tale of irresistible suspense with a racing, unstoppable current.

So Cold the River Reviews

"Starred Review. [An] explosive thriller...a cataclysmic finale will put readers in mind of some of the best recent works of supernatural horror, among which this book ranks." - Publishers Weekly

"A gothic horror story set in - wait for it - rural Indiana ... a departure from Kortya's Lincoln Perry p.i. series ... that's every bit as well-written." - Kirkus Reviews

"[Koryta's] tight, clear prose makes West Baden as creepy as Transylvania, and Eric is a compellingly flawed protagonist. Legions of King and Peter Straub devotees will be delighted." - Booklist

"Fans of horror and supernatural suspense will enjoy his latest, and darkest, work yet." - Library Journal

"Fast-paced and action-packed, So Cold the River is good, unclean fun. Like Joe Hill, Michael Koryta is infusing the old-school supernatural horror novel with new blood. Drink up!" - Stewart O'Nan, author of A Prayer for the Dying

"Kortya's So Cold The River is an example of the good-writing equals good-reading equation that makes fright-inducing fiction worthy of our time, attention, and real enjoyment." - author of The Terror and Drood

"This book builds like a summer storm. Beautiful to watch until it shakes the house and knocks out the lights, leaving you alone in the dark. Another masterful work from Michael Koryta, So Cold The River is guaranteed to put the cold finger down your spine." - Michael Connelly

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Michael Koryta Author Biography

Michael Koryta has written eight novels, praised by such authors as Stephen King, Dean Koontz, Michael Connelly and Dennis Lehane, and his most recent novel, The Ridge, was called "A freshly imagined and elegantly constructed variation on the dead-of-night ghost story," by the New York Times and "a chilling supernatural thriller by a rising literary star," by the Wall Street Journal. In addition to winning the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, his novel Envy the Night was selected as a Reader's Digest condensed book.

His work has been translated into more than twenty languages. A former private investigator and newspaper reporter, Koryta graduated from Indiana University with a degree in criminal justice. He currently lives in St. Petersburg, Florida, and...

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