3 Stars

Michael Koryta is one of my favorite authors writing today. His books are creative and unique in that they often combine the everyday with a touch of the supernatural. His environments and his locations are characters in themselves, giving the books life and imagination. The Ridge and The Cypress House are two of my favorite reads of his that I recommended to my family and my friends. In this book, The Prophet, Koryta steers his tale in a direction of the main stream. This is his most accessible book to date as it does not contain any of his extra special touches. It is however, quite ordinary and forgettable as a tale of a small town murder mystery. This book is also a very familiar tale of estranged brothers, separated by more than age; they both define their lives by how they respond to a shared family tragedy.

Unfortunately, Koryta misses the bigger picture in this book and does not give us what he does best. The atmosphere here is at best a sufficient small high school football town that is painted with colors that we are all familiar with. In the Ridge the location and the animals were main characters, plot points, and were part of the overall theme. The night time elements were surreal and borderline magical. Likewise, in the Cypress house, Florida’s hot coastline landscape is a key character in the story. The locations forced many decisions and turned the plot on its own accord. In The Prophet, the small town simply is a place to hold our story.

The cast is not a large one and the side characters are merely two dimensional page fillers. Adam is the most unique and interesting character in my opinion but he plays the second role to our main protagonist Kent. Kent, a former high school football star is now the legendary coach of Chambers Ohio. He makes major life changes after a major tragedy affects his family. He blames himself as does his older brother Adam. Childhood competition leads to adulthood resentment and estrangement as each brother disapproves greatly with the others life choices. Koryta tries to get the reader to empathize with Kent but simply comes up short by failing to give us enough backstory about him that we could really like. The plot points are spelled out with giant street signs that make the outcome very easy to see, and give us nothing new to cheer over. I did not care for Kent one way or another, I was indifferent. Same is true with all the football analogies, I did not find them to be profound or revealing even though I am a huge fan of the sport and can easily identify with some of the obsessions. Too many of the major plot points were done in an almost cheesy in your face and obvious matter. This book was far too ho-hum and ordinary for me to really get into. Once and author makes such a great name for himself as has Koryta, by being so creative and unique, he cannot go back to being plain and simple without disappointing his fan base. I expected more than a breezy summer read.

The title of this book is “The Prophet”, but it probably should have been called “The Preacher”, as it could not have been more in your face with its messages than it was. It was done with such a heavy hand that I found myself annoyed and a bit angry too.

On the positive note, I am a huge fan of Michael Koryta and feel that he is an author not to be missed by those that love creative, surreal, and mysterious thrillers. His writing is part poetic, part lyrical, and at times truly exceptional.


““There is no God.
You walk alone in the darkness.
To prove this, to imprint it in the mind so deeply that no alternative can so much as flicker, is the goal. This is power, pure as it comes.
Bring him the hopeful and he will leave them hopeless. Bring him the strong and he will leave them broken. Bring him the full and he will leave them empty.
The prophet’s goal is simple. When the final scream in the night comes, whoever issues it will be certain of one thing: No one hears.
What he has been promised in Chambers, Ohio, is strength and resiliency. He has looked into a confident man’s eyes and heard his assurance that there is no fear that will not bow to his faith.
The prophet of hard times, who has looked into many a confident gaze in his day, has his doubts about that.””


I really had high anticipation about this book and feel quit let down. I never thought that I would read a plain and ordinary murder mystery by Michael Koryta. Koryta is a special writer and a gifted one, this book however is not. To me it does not compare to some of his other amazing works.