Lincoln Perry
Created by Michael Koryta

It's tempting to simply rag on author Michael Koryta's age (or lack of it), but that would just be too easy. I mean, how dare this twenty-one year old punk kid win the 2003 St. Martin's Press/Private Eye Writers of America Prize for Best First P.I. Novel? But Lord knows, a bunch of us old-timers already took our shots at this young whippersnapper at the 2004 Bouchercon in Toronto (and a good time was had by all), so I guess I'll have to actually talk about Tonight I Said Goodbye, the book in question, instead.

And I hate to break it to you, but the damn thing's pretty good. Okay, it's not great – Koryta has the typical novice writer's tendency to overwrite, while at other times the prose slows down to a crawl, and a few of the coincidences feel a little too much like cheating. Still, the story, about Cleveland gumshoe Lincoln Perry and his retired cop partner Joe Pritchard tracking down the missing wife and daughter of a fellow private detective who may (or may not) have committed suicide, is solid and deftly handled.

Impulsive, thirty-something Perry is an ex-cop left the department under a bit of a cloud, and tends to shoot off his mouth and jump to conclusions, but is often held in check by the older (and probaly wiser) Pritchard.. They run their agency from out of al old bank building, and make an interesting team. I'm looking forward to where Koryta plans to take them.

Koryta may not be breaking much new ground, but underneath the typical hardboiled shenanigans (Sex! Violence! Russian gangsters!), there's a definite heart beating, and a few powerfully wrenching scenes you won't soon forget (you'll never look at a melting snowman quite the same way again). Koryta's confident and respectful handling of the genre's conventions and traditions, his willingness to dig beneath the surface and make his characters come alive, not to mention his apparent compassion for them, bodes well for the future. I may be wrong, but it looks like we've got a brave new voice in the private eye genre here.

And wouldn't you know -- in each subsequent book in the series (and a couple of standalones, including the much-acclaimed Envy the Night) he's gotten better. More assured, more polished, more muscular in his plotting and characterization.

Damn.

UNDER OATH

• "The plot is intricately woven...As a protagonist, Perry is completely human, with knowledge, ability and insecurities. The twists in the story are so unexpected that the reader can only scratch his or her head in awe and wonderment."
  -- ILoveAMystery.com on Silent Hour
  
  
• "Reading James Crumley and John D. MacDonald set the writing hook in me: I wanted to write mysteries and thrillers. I wanted to be a storyteller.
  
  Now, in Michael Koryta, all these years later, I've read the heir apparent to those masters. There is grit and determination in Michael's writing; there is heart and character; the threat of violence first simmers, then boils over. The pulse quickens. Envy The Night (Koryta's first standalone) is everything this kind of novel is meant to be. A more fitting title: Envy The Writer.
  
  What separates this book from others? One word: characters. Stories are stories. We all read (and write) a ton of them. But we come to novels to meet fresh faces, and Michael Koryta delivers."
  -- Ridley Pearson

NOVELS

• Tonight I Said Goodbye (2004)....Buy this book... Kindle it!
• Sorrow's Anthem (2006).. Buy this book... Kindle it!
• A Welcome Grave (2007).. Buy this book... Kindle it!
• The Silent Hour (2009) ...Buy this book... Kindle it!
  

RELATED LINKS

• Tonight I Said Goodbye
  The Thrilling Detective Web Site Review by James R. Winter

Report respectfully submitted by Kevin Burton Smith.