Review
Hot diggity! How can you lose by reading a gritty whodunit about football, smack in the thick of football season? Here's the thing: You can't. Even if you're not a football fan. Even if you can't tell a cornerback from a lineman. Because, see, I don't even know the difference between those two positions and I loved this book.
What I do know about football is that it's a full contact sport that requires planning and strategy and pits two teams against each other in a battle where wits can defeat muscle some of the time. I also know that Michael Koryta takes full advantage of the football theme in
The Prophet. It serves as a story arc, a metaphor and - most interestingly - structure for this dark thriller. I expect nothing less from him. His novels are complex, his characters are darkly compelling, and his sense of timing (key in both football and mysteries) is...
Beyond the Book
In
The Prophet Adam Austen is a licensed commercial bail bondsman. It is a profession unique to only two countries in the world, the United States and the Philippines (a former US colony).
Other countries use a variety of methods to ensure that defendants will show up for a court date. For example, in the UK, in the case of serious crimes such as murder, defendants will likely be kept in jail; but in most other cases defendants are released back into the community "on bail" with or without restrictions (such as limits on where they can travel) and with the knowledge that failure to attend court will add an additional crime...
