Customer Reviews

So Cold the River

5 star:		(41)
4 star:		(31)
3 star:		(19)
2 star:		(20)
1 star:		(14)

 

 

When filmmaker Eric Shaw is approached by the lovely Alyssa Bradford, who asks Shaw if he would be willing to travel to her dying father-in-law's hometown to do a retrospective about his early life, Shaw figures it is easy money. However, he soon discovers it won't be as easy as all that. It turns out that Campbell Bradford's early life is shrouded in mystery - all Shaw has to go on is the name of the town (West Baden, IN, a small rural town very close to French Lick, IN) and a bottle of Pluto Water, a cure-all remedy mineral water bottled about 80 years ago. Pluto Water had been one of the mainstays of the economy of the West Baden/French Lick area during the time of Campbell's childhood - that and the mineral springs brought people from all over to the luxurious West Baden Springs Hotel. Unable to find any information on Campbell Bradford ahead of time on the internet, Shaw travels to Indiana, only to start having frightening hallucinations and experiences after arriving there. As the days pass, Shaw discovers a frightening fragment of the past that seems to be coming back ... can he stop it in time?

An excellent variation on the haunting genre, a subtle paranormal thriller, this is a great book for those who enjoy suspense, paranormal thrillers and horror. I enjoyed the book a great deal and highly recommend it.

This book begins with The protagonist Eric Shaw at a funeral watching with the family the DVD video that he created of the deceased's life.He was trained as a film maker but has had issues with the people he worked with. When he has to take inderal and Xanax to get though the funeral you can figure that anxiety is one of his issues.After the funeral the sister of the deceased asks him to go to her father in law's home town, French Lick, Indiana and find out something about his past. Her father-in-law has become very rich and is 95 years old but she knows nothing about his past and wants the video as a gift for her husband. She books him in at The West Baden Springs Hotel( This is a real place, a fantastic historical hotel) Google it! She gives him an unopened bottle of mineral water that her father in law, Campbell Bradford has had since 1929. The only thing he has from his past.
When he gets to the hotel, he can't stop himself from drinking some of the water called Pluto water. He starts to have visions and headaches that is only relieved by drinking more of the water.
We are now in Stephen King territory, a nice place to be.He finds that there is only one Bradford left there and he is a terrible person.The book is very long but makes a very enjoyable read. It made me want to go and check out the area. I think they still have Pluto water there and the whole area is beautiful.
I really liked the book, the characters are interesting and the story is a mystery with lots and lots of strange things going on. I am going to be reading more of Michael Koryta's books but think they can't be as good as this one.I highly recommend it for anyone who likes something a little different.

You want to know what this book is about? Read the authors description because they did a great job describing it. You want to know if you should read it?? YES!! You want to know if I enjoyed it? Double YES!! There are soooo many murder-mystery, thriller, suspense, and similar books out there with fairly the same basic plot...a bad guy does something illegal, people try to find him, they wind up locating him, lock him up and happily ever after. This book isn't like that. The author did a wonderful job of thinking up a new & interesting supernatural plot and delivered it beautifully without making it too unbelievable. There was always something new happening adding to the suspense...I couldn't put this one down!! My favorite part of this book...the ending!! Most books all end the same and 3/4 the way through the book you can almost always predict what is going to happen...they catch the bad guy, lock him up and everything is fine...but not here! I don't want to ruin the ending of this one for anybody, but I sense a "So Cold the River 2" coming....and I can't wait for it!!!

I won't recap the book and it's plot, since that would just be repeating the book description and seems unnecessary to me. First off - Michael Kortya is a really talented writer, and I really enjoyed most of the book and particularly the long slow build up towards the ending. His writing tyle reads easily and smoothly and feels very natural. However, the end felt a little unfinished to me and left me disappointed with it's resolution. The central mystery of the book felt like it wasn't fully fleshed and the main issue never really dealt with. I won't go into details and risk spoiling the end, so I'll have to leave it at that. Overall, the book is a good read.

Not exactly sure how I would classify this book. The major bookstores seem to be shoehorning this into the horror realm. It doesn't read like the typical horror story to me, although there is evil. And while it is a thrilling story, it's not exactly what you would call a thriller. Not fantasy, as while there's a magical element to it, there are no wizards or werewolves or unicorns to be found. Think I'm going to go with the broad generalization of speculative fiction. While I understand why they chose horror, I think it's a mistake as readers who would love this book may never see it if they don't normally read horror.

This was a really engaging story! The main character is Eric Shaw, a former hotshot filmmaker who is now producing video montages for weddings and funerals. We gradually learn how he wound up so far from Hollywood and estranged from his wife, as he begins work on a documentary for his latest client. Eric runs into roadblocks almost immediately, as it seems that the Campbell Bradford who once ruled over the town is not Alyssa's father-in-law. Could there be two Campbell Bradfords? From the same town? Doesn't seem likely, but things just get stranger from there.

With the help of Kellen Cage, a student working on his doctorate thesis, and Anne McKinney, an older woman who remembers the town as it once was, Eric tries to solve the mystery of Campbell Bradford and his strange antique bottle of Pluto Mineral Water. Why is the bottle so cold, even after sitting in a warm room? Does it really have the power to cause visions? Let's just say that this story gives a whole new twist to the advice: don't drink the water!

Gave this one a 4/5 rating as I really enjoyed it. The writing is excellent, and Koryta masterfully weaves the horror, mystery, and thriller aspects of the story together into an exciting and surprising conclusion! Have to say that while I predicted how the story would end, I was happy to be proved wrong. I thought it was original and clever and definitely worth reading!

From the moment I picked the book up, I kept feeling like this book had a "Stephen King's Shining" vibe, which seems to have been intentional. After all, the main character himself remarks on how the hotel he's staying in reminds him of the Overlook hotel. Other than those initial vibes, that's where the similarities end.

Eric used to be a relatively in-demand man in the film industry, having an uncanny knack for choosing the exactly right spots to film in. Now Eric spends his days composing wedding & funeral videos for the wealthy while he wonders exactly what went wrong in his marriage. When Alyssa Bradford offers him a lot of money to do a film on her dying father-in-law, Eric initially assumes that it'll be just another job. He quickly finds himself being drawn into something far more sinister as he attempts to finish the job.

I liked this book as it has all of the stuff I love (old mysteries, supernatural happenings, slow suspsense), but I'll be completely honest with you. I probably won't be reading this again. It's good, but towards the end it just didn't keep me "in" as much as it did at the beginning. Koryta does a nice job of building suspense, but it's the ending that really just killed it for me. It felt a little anti-climactic & rushed, in my opinion. I'm not really sure how it could have ended, but it just felt like it should have been something slightly different.

That being said, I have to say that I liked the characters for the most part & I really liked that the main character of Eric wasn't particularly likeable. I don't mean that in the "I don't want to read about him" sense, but in the "this guy needs help & actually changes during the book" sense. Eric starts the book off feeling incredibly sorry about himself, putting himself first & generally being a selfish guy. I could feel sorry for him because he genuinely felt bad about his marriage, but I could also recognize that he was one of the biggest contributions to its decay. That, I have to give Koryta credit for- too many authors try to make their "not a likeable guy" character into more of a "he's a jerk but it isn't his fault" type of guy & for the most part Koryta refrains from doing this.

Fans of supernatural thrillers will like this & those who like a quieter thriller without the huge fight or action scenes will enjoy it greatly. It is very much worth checking out, if you like this type of story.

3.5/5

The description of this book has all the elements you think would make a great scary thriller - a dying man with a mysterious past, an old hotel, strange occurrences and a writer investigating it all. Sounds good, right? That's what I thought but it doesn't live up to expectations. I agree with what one other reviewer said about the main character. He's just not a likeable guy - he's a bit pathetic and full of self pity. It's hard to get involved in a story when you just don't care what happens to the main character. But beyond that, the story is just weak. There is nothing original here. This story has been done quite a number of times and each one is better than this attempt. Try "The Shining" or "The Harrowing" and you'll see what I mean. I also felt that there were too many odds and ends constantly being thrown into the story that didn't make sense. You think "Ah, this is going to be something" but it takes too long to develop and you lose interest. I honestly hoped for a good read in picking this up because I am a fan of spooky house stories. I just couldn't get into it.

I love this author and really wanted to enjoy his entry into a new genre. I started the book and liked it so much I recommended it to my friends. Then it went on. And on. And on. And on. You get the picture. By the time I was 3/4 finished I was literally skimming pages to get to the end quickly. I think he could easily eliminate 1/3 of the book and what would be left would be outstanding. Those who gave it so many stars much have much, much more patience than I do!

I was pleasantly surprised by this book. Great setup: a bottle of ancient spring water that may or may not cause hallucinations and may or may not be resurrecting the dead; a failed Hollywood filmmaker who has been hired to document the life of a man who may not be who he claims to be; a creepy hotel straight out of The Shining; well-developed supporting characters (LOTS of them). Ironically, I felt that the story lost some of its momentum when the action really took off in the last few chapters -- that's when the plot evolved into the typical cliffhanger/woman (and man) in jeopardy/thrill-a-minute chase sequence (yes, there is even a bomb). Till then it's all spine-chilling fun. As an extra treat, the hardcover edition includes the first chapter of Michael Koryta's forthcoming book (due in January 2011). I'm definitely intrigued.

I've never read anything by Koryta and I only tried this one out because I do like supernatural thrillers and horror. This book is neither. If I had a dime for every time one particular character noted that "a storm is coming," I'd be a very rich person indeed. There is such a thing as overusing a metaphor to DEATH, and Koryta does that here. The trappings are okay--shady past, weird hotel, blah, blah--and there are more than a few nods to Stephen King (right down to the old wise woman who serves virtually no other purpose but to sense the STORM ABOUT TO HAPPEN), but a Gothic thriller this ain't, and the book isn't even that involving. In fact, I got so impatient with the actual book that I switched to the audiobook, hoping that a good narrator could make a so-so book more enjoyable. It did--but only marginally.

Koryta apparently made his bones with thrillers. If so, the pacing required doesn't show in this particular effort, nor are the characters all that compelling or even interesting; the primary protagonist, Eric, is a fairly whiny, self-pitying guy I'd rather see fail than succeed. The BIG BAD BOY of the tale, Josiah, isn't drawn with much in the way of subtlety or believability--and, of course, we all KNOW how BAD he is because he curses a blue streak: the only character to really do so. The only likeable guy is Kellen Cage, the erstwhile, brawny, brainy--and, interestingly, black--buddy. If the stereotype weren't a little insulting--big black guy watching the little white guy's ass--it would almost be laughable.

Want to read a truly involving Gothic thriller, one that actually has a bit of psychology to it worth understanding? Try Lehane's SHUTTER ISLAND. Forget the mess Scorcese made of the film and treat yourself to a read--or, better yet, a listen. The narrator is pitch-perfect for that one. (The guy here is adequate, but that is all.)