An Honest Man

Koryta’s (Those Who Wish Me Dead) suspense and story move along at a brisk pace in his latest, whose titular honest man is Israel Pike. Within the first pages, Israel finds seven men shot to death on a yacht drifting in the ocean off a small island in Maine. He is immediately considered a suspect, especially by his uncle, the deputy sheriff of Salvation Island. Fifteen years ago, Israel killed his own father during an argument, and his uncle arrested him on the spot. Israel had been out of prison for only a few months when he found the bodies. It appears that Israel is withholding a secret as he works with state police major crime unit’s Jenn Salazar. Meanwhile, a boy named Lyman Rankin, hiding out on a nearby island, finds a woman squatting in an abandoned house. She is holding a hatchet, has terrible wounds on her feet, and has a pile of blood-soaked money. As in his other novels, Koryta’s characters evoke feelings of sympathy, anger, and joy. Readers will stay engaged until the end.