Not bad. Lots of action. The body count was pretty ridiculous in this book. Kept me entertained for hours of unpacking.

Interesting back story. Lots of potential with the characters. Unfortunately, Koryta didn't quite create a connection between the reader, Nora and Frank. I was interested in what happened to them, but I wasn't invested. Even the big reveal didn't quite pack the punch that it had the potential to do. It could have been a showstopper, but it just didn't quite make it.

Nice story. But had hard time liking the charcters.

Entertaining story, decent characters, but ending was really weak

Apparently, I don't like psychological thrillers.

This book was not as good as the previous one I read by him. It started off great and decent middle but got less interesting after that. It was good enough but didn’t live up to its promise.

This was Koryta's first published stand alone, following three of his Lincoln Perry books, and I wonder if it was actually written before those successful books. The writing is dragged out and the action sequences are repetitive. Too many characters are given POV chapters that add pages but not depth to the story. Why three stars then? Even at his weakest story telling, Koryta is a master at sense of place. This time it is "Up North" aka the Northwoods of Wisconsin, and he gets it very, very right.

Frank Temple III drives through the night to Wisconsin. He is returning to his father’s cabin as a result of a call from Ezra Ballard, one of his father’s closest friends. Frank Temple Jr. has been dead for seven years; he was an F.B.I. agent and a contract killer who committed suicide when his cover was about to come apart at the seams. Frank is looking for the man who informed on his father and caused his suicide. Frank plans to kill him. Nora Stafford has run Stafford’s Collision and Custom on the Willow Flowage, a remote area of Wisconsin, since her father’s stroke. Ezra tells Frank that Devin Matteson, his father’s Mafia contact, is heading to Wisconsin. Ezra’s telephone call sets in motion the death of five more people, some more innocent than others. Frank and Nora collide with mob hit men and the F.B.I. as they try to survive another day. Frank’s father taught him survival skills and he puts them to good use while protecting Nora. Ezra made his peace with Vietnam while in the Willow and he remembers his skills as well.

Koryta continues to impress me with his developed characters, dialogue and tense plot. Shout out for descriptive Wisconsin lake passages