THE PROPHET by Micheal Koryta

THE PROPHET by Michael Koryta is a mystery and psychological thriller featuring brothers, Adam and Kent Austin and Northeast Ohio high school football.

The Austin brothers live in Chambers, Ohio, a declining former steel town on Lake Erie where high school football gives residents purpose and escape from otherwise ordinary lives.  Adam and Kent are former stars of the local football team whose lives were altered when their teenage sister was kidnapped and murdered over twenty years earlier.  They each have reason to blame themselves for what happened to their sister but each have dealt with that guilt very differently.  Adam obsessed on revenge and joined his father in drinking too much.  His obsessions ruined his promising football career at Ohio State and eventually he returned to his hometown to work as a bail bondsmen and PI.  He moves into his childhood house, maintains his sister’s room as a shrine and often speaks aloud to her ghost.  Kent focuses on football becoming a very successful head coach of Chambers High School.  He marries the daughter of his former high school coach and finds religion as a comfort to his guilt.  He becomes a lay minister frequently visiting local prisons to share his faith and tell his story.  The brother’s very different ways of dealing with their sister’s death, bitterness vs forgiveness, have marred their relationship.  They rarely see each other, even avoid one another.  Adam however still attends the Chambers High football games and is very proud that his brother has a chance the win the state football championship this year.

Then another teenage girl is murdered in Chambers.  She is girlfriend to one of Kent’s football players whom he has counseled.  Adam, as private investigator, worked for the girl helping her to reconnect with her estranged father who was supposedly recently released from prison.  She is murdered at the address where Adam sends her as a result of his investigation.  Later, they learn that the girl’s father is still in prison. The Austin brothers again feel responsibility and guilt for the murder of a teenage girl in their hometown.  Again they choose very different courses of action.  Kent goes to the police revealing all he knows about the girl and Adam vows to the dead girl’s mother he will personally find and kill the murderer.

The brothers are drawn together when Kent suspects the murderer is one of the prison inmates to whom he has witnessed his faith.  The predator starts to threaten Kent’s family.  Adam steps in to protect his brother hoping to find the killer and fulfill his promise.

THE PROPHET is my first venture into the works of Michael Koryta.  His strength is clearly in character development.  He reminds us that while one event can change our lives, the way we chose to deal with that event can define who we are.  Even brothers approach a traumatic experience very differently.  Koryta develops each brother with likeable and dislikable qualities, each with strong survival instincts and good intentions, each with a strong but individual sense of right and wrong, yet both with a family bond that is undeniable.  Throw in Ohio high school football and you have a great selection for Men Reading Books.  (btw…Koryta is an IU graduate and now lives in Bloomington, IN.)