Lincoln Perry Series by Michael Koryta
Lincoln Perry #1
Tonight I Said Goodbye lp-1
Michael Koryta
A remarkable debut mystery from the award-winning author of the 2003 St. Martin's Press/Private Eye Writers of America Prize for Best First Private Eye Novel.
Michael Koryta's Tonight I Said Goodbye marks the emergence of a stunning new voice in crime fiction. With its edge-of-your-seat pacing, finely drawn characters, and rock-solid prose, Tonight I Said Goodbye would seem to be the work of a grizzled pro; the fact that the author is just twenty-one years old makes it all the more amazing.
Investigator Wayne Weston is found dead of an apparent suicide in his home in an upscale Cleveland suburb, and his wife and six-year-old daughter are missing. Weston's father insists that private investigators Lincoln Perry and Joe Pritchard take the case to exonerate his son and find his granddaughter and daughter-in-law. As they begin to work they discover there is much more to the situation than has been described in the prevalent media reports. There are rumors of gambling debts and extortion, and a group of Russians with ties to organized crime who don't appreciate being investigated--a point they make clear with baseball bats.
With some assistance from newspaper reporter Amy Ambrose, Perry and Pritchard believe they are making swift progress. But then they are warned off the investigation by a millionaire real estate tycoon and the FBI. Just when they feel they are closing in on a possible source of answers, another murder forces them to change direction in the case.
Perry travels to a resort town in South Carolina and there he finds more than one game being played, and all of them are deadly. The stakes quickly become very personal for Perry, and it's clear that there will be no walking away from this case.
In a debut that has already garnered praise from some of today's top writers, Michael Koryta immediately establishes himself as a standard bearer for the next generation of crime writers. Tonight I Said Goodbye is a 2005 Edgar Award Nominee for Best First Novel.
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Lincoln Perry #2
Sorrow's Anthem lp-2
Michael Koryta
In the beginning it was all about money. Then things got personal.
This is the story that Ed Gradduk tells his best friend, and private investigator, Lincoln Perry. Ed is on the run, hiding from the police who intend to arrest him for arson and murder.
When Gradduk is killed in a violent confrontation with police, Perry cannot shake his friend's death and vows to understand the forces that brought him down.
With an intense exploration of both character and crime, Sorrow's Anthem establishes Michael Korya as one of the top young mystery writers in America today.
From Publishers Weekly Koryta's impressive second hard-boiled mystery is a worthy successor to his debut, Tonight I Said Goodbye (2004), an Edgar and Shamus finalist. Cleveland PI Lincoln Perry, haunted by the circumstances that led to his estrangement from his best friend, Ed Gradduk, clutches at an opportunity for redemption on learning that Gradduk is a fugitive from the law, suspected of arson and murder. Perry's hopes of repairing their relationship are dashed after his childhood confidant dies in an accident. As a result, Perry shifts his mission to clearing the dead man's name. Perry, aided by his partner, follows a winding trail of dirty cops and multiple suspicious fires toward the truth. The 22-year-old author, who works for a PI and for an Indiana newspaper, displays credible insider knowledge of those professions as well as a gift for creating both sympathetic characters and a fast-moving, twisty plot.
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Lincoln Perry #3
A Welcome Grave lp-3
Michael Koryta
Sometime after midnight, on a moonless October night turned harsh by a fine, windswept rain, one of the men I liked least in the world was murdered in a field near Bedford, just south of the city....The detectives went looking for suspects--- people whose histories with Jefferson were adversarial and hostile. At the top of that list, they found me.
So begins A Welcome Grave, the third novel by award-winning mystery writer Michael Koryta, featuring private investigator Lincoln Perry. Once a rising star on the Cleveland police force, Perry ended his career when he left one of the city's prominent attorneys, Alex Jefferson, bleeding in the parking lot of his country club---retribution for his affair with Perry's fiancée. Now Jefferson is dead, the victim of a brutal murder, and his widow has called upon Perry for a favor he knows he shouldn't accept but can't turn down: to find Jefferson's estranged son, partial beneficiary of the dead man's fortune. The case is simple enough, a routine "locate," and he'll be paid plenty of money for the work. The encounter should be simple, too: a brief exchange of information and maybe an empty condolence before Perry gets back into his truck and returns home. Instead, he's loaded into a police car and taken to a rural jail while Jefferson's son is zipped into a body bag. Perry soon learns that Jefferson's millions are the target of a thirst for revenge that hasn't been satisfied by blood. As a pair of deadly assailants push deep into the investigator's life, they bring with them police from two states who are determined to see Perry in jail. Building on the skill that prompted the Toronto Sun to call him "one of America's best young mystery writers," Michael Koryta makes A Welcome Grave an intense exploration of the lengths to which a desperate man is forced to go in order to clear his name and solve a crime. This is a thrilling new book that justifies the critical acclaim and solidifies his role as an emerging talent among today's top writers.
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Lincoln Perry #4
The Silent Hour lp-4
Michael Koryta
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.
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 multimillion-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.
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