When Arlen Wagner awakens on a train one hot Florida night and sees death's telltale sign in the eyes of his fellow passengers, he tries to warn them. Only 19-year-old Paul Brickhill believes him, and the two abandon the train, hoping to escape certain death. They continue south, but are soon stranded at the Cypress House--an isolated Gulf Coast boarding house run by the beautiful Rebecca Cady--directly in the path of an approaching hurricane. But the storm isn't the only approaching danger.
This wasn’t at all what I expected. Despite the popularity of Koryta’s previous novel, So Cold the River, I haven’t read it yet, so this is my first experience with him. I was definitely not disappointed. Koryta gives us an unusual guy in an unusual situation, yet manages to make it all seem perfectly normal. Arlen’s "gift" — the ability to see that someone is "marked for death" — could have been the centerpiece of the story. In fact, I expected it to be. Instead, it’s just another thing about Arlen, and you even find yourself forgetting about it at times. It remains important to the plot, and influences several of Arlen’s decisions, but it doesn’t overwhelm it. I really liked the twists and turns and surprising places this story takes us, especially when Arlen shows his bad-ass side. Whether or not you’ve read Koryta before, this is a book I can heartily recommend. Don’t let the supernatural tag scare you.
