Set in Florida in 1935, Koryta's masterful follow-up to So Cold the River effectively combines supernatural terror with the suffocating fatalism of classic American noir. Since serving as a Marine in WWI, Arlen Wagner has been able to identify people marked for death by something only he can see-smoke swirling in their eyes. While riding a train with 33 other Civilian Conservation Corps workers, Arlen spots smoke in the eyes of his fellow passengers. Certain the train is headed for disaster, he can persuade only one of them, 19-year-old Paul Brickhill, to get off at the next stop. Arlen and Paul wind up at a boarding house, where they become involved with its operator, the mysterious and beautiful Rebecca Cady, who's somehow beholden to some vicious and corrupt local law enforcement officials. Koryta excels at describing both scenery and his characters' inner landscapes. It's hard to think of another book with equal appeal to Stephen King and Cornell Woolrich fans. (Jan.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

After making his name with five strong crime novels, Koryta started adding chills to the thrills in the horror-tinged So Cold the River (2010). In this one, battle-hardened WWI veteran Arlen Wagner can foretell others' deaths. With the Great Depression crippling the country, he works in the Civilian Conservation Corps and keeps his demons at bay with hard work and a flask full of whiskey. He and young friend Paul Brickhill are traveling by train to a new CCC camp in the Florida Keys when Arlen's supernatural sense tells him they have to get off the train if they want to stay alive. They find themselves at Cypress House, a strangely empty fishing resort on the Gulf Coast run by beautiful but taciturn Rebecca Cady and right in the middle of a vipers' nest of small-town corruption and misery. Koryta is superb with mood and setting, and, if a bit too much of the plot is revealed in stories the characters tell to each other, the simmering tension erupts into a rolling boil by the bloody, spooky, and satisfying ending. HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: Koryta's stock has only risen since his Edgar-nominated first novel. His first crossover supernatural thriller evoked comparisons to Stephen King and Peter Straub; a big promotional push this time will extend that momentum still further.--Graff, Keir Copyright 2010 Booklist

Ex-World War I sniper Arlen Wagner can tell when someone is about to die-he envisions that person as a skeleton with smoky eyes. Sometimes, though not often, he can intervene. Arlen has plenty of opportunities to put his unusual ability to the test in this Depression-era novel set in Florida that is Koryta's second go at supernatural suspense, following So Cold the River (2010)-also available from Hachette Audio/AudioGO. Actor/narrator Robert Petkoff (robertpetkoff.-com) gives Arlen a tough-guy growl; Arlen's young buddy, Paul, a naive earnestness; and the bad guys a creepy menace. Though Arlen's ability is a bit on the hokey side and the plot somewhat predictable, this noirish, atmospheric novel still holds appeal for general audiences. [The Little, Brown hc received a starred review, LJ 11/1/10; the Back Bay pb will be released in May.-Ed.]-John Hiett, Iowa City P.L. (c) Copyright 2011. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

I'M always stumped when someone asks me to find them "a good mystery," because I might recommend a serial killer thriller like Jo Nesbo's fiendishly clever novel THE SNOWMAN (Knopf, $25.95) to someone hankering for a civilized British detective story like Peter Lovesey's STAGESTRUCK (Soho Crime, $25). So let's play favorites - but pick your poison first. FAVORITE BOOK The final exit of a beloved sleuth is the focal point of my choice: THE TROUBLED MAN (Knopf, $26.95). Henning Mankell makes it clear that his brilliant if chronically depressed Swedish detective, Kurt Wallander, has solved his last case. In the course of investigating a political conspiracy that dates back to the cold war, Wallander comes to realize "how little he actually knew about the world he had lived in" and how inadequate his efforts to fix that broken world have proved. Although it accounts for his perpetual mood of despair, that insight also makes him a hero for this age of anxiety. FAVORITE NEW SLEUTH George Pelecanos's new protagonist. Spero Lucas, is not only younger and friskier than most private eyes, he's also untainted by the cynicism that goes with the profession. Making his first appearance in THE CUT (Reagan Arthur/Little, Brown, $25.99), Lucas brings his lusty appetites and taste for danger to a vivid narrative about gang wars in Washington, D.C. The big question: Can Pelecanos keep his young hero from flaming out? FAVORITE DEBUT NOVEL/FAVORITE ACTION THRILLER Sebastian Rotella scores twice for TRIPLE CROSSING (Mulholland/Little, Brown, $24.99), which begins on the San Diego-Tijuana border and sends good guys from both sides of the fence to combat drug smugglers and terrorists in the badlands of South America. FAVORITE COZY That would be A TRICK OF THE LIGHT (Minotaur, $25.99), Louise Penny's mystery starring Armand Gamache of the Sûreté du Québec and set in the enchanting village of Three Pines. FAVORITE REGIONAL MYSTERY In SHOCK WAVE (Putnam, $27.95), John Sandford drags Virgil Flowers away from an all-girls volleyball tournament and dispatches him to Butternut Falls, where a bomber is intent on keeping out a big-box store. FAVORITE SUSPENSE NOVEL Cara Hoffman takes on rural poverty, domestic abuse and teenage violence in her first novel, SO MUCH PRETTY (Simon & Schuster, $25), which watches a family of urbanites come to grief in upstate New York. Runner-up is another novel on the same theme: BENT ROAD (Dutton, $25.95), in which Lori Roy observes the breakdown of a family that has moved to Kansas to escape racial tensions in 1960s Detroit. FAVORITE MYSTERY WITH A SOCIAL CONSCIENCE A tie between THE END OF THE WASP SEASON (Reagan Arthur/ Little, Brown, $25.99), by Denise Mina, and THE BOY IN THE SUITCASE (Soho, $24), by the Danish authors Lene Kaaberbol and Agnete Friis. Mina's gritty Glasgow procedural features a female cop who takes pity on a 15-year-old killer because she's witnessed the neglect that can produce such damaged children. The criminal mistreatment of children is also the focus of the Danish thriller, which follows the efforts of a nurse to identify the 3-year-old boy she rescues at the Copenhagen train station. FAVORITE NOIR Antiheroes don't get much darker than the protagonist of James Sallis's moody existential mystery, THE KILLER IS DYING (Walker, $24), a hit man who wants to make one last clean kill before he dies. But I have to go with the rogue Scott Phillips introduces in THE ADJUSTMENT (Counterpoint, $25). This prince of a fellow made a killing pimping and working the black market as an Army quartermaster in Rome during World War II. But peacetime life in Wichita is so dull it takes all his ingenuity to come up with a new way to make a dishonest living. FAVORITE SUPERNATURAL MYSTERY Michael Koryta easily takes top honors for two eerie novels, THE CYPRESS HOUSE (Little, Brown, $24.99), a 1930s gangster story with spooky undertones, and THE RIDGE (Little, Brown, $24.99), a ghost story set in an old mining region of Kentucky. FAVORITE HISTORICAL MYSTERY If the category were narrowed to World War II-era novels, it would be a tossup between FIELD GRAY (Marian Wood/Putnam, $26.95), the darkest of Philip Kerr's Berlin stories, and David Downing's POTSDAM STATION (Soho, $25), with its horrific scenes of Berlin falling to the Red Army. But in an open field, top honors go to C.J. Sansom for HEARTSTONE (Viking, $27.95), a Tudor mystery that captures the chaotic state of England in the aftermath of Henry VIII's ill-conceived invasion of France. FAVORITE PERFORMANCE BY AN OLD PRO That's a tough one in a year that saw top-drawer work from Michael Connelly in THE FIFTH WITNESS (Little, Brown, $27.99). James Lee Burke in FEAST DAY OF FOOLS (Simon & Schuster, $26.99) and Thomas Perry in THE INFORMANT (Otto Penzler/ Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, $27). Sue Grafton earns special mention for keeping Kinsey Millhone engaged and endearing through her 22nd alphabet mystery, V IS FOR VENGEANCE (Marian Wood/Putnam, $27.95). But for sentimental reasons, I'm going with Lawrence Block's nostalgic novel, A DROP OF THE HARD STUFF (Mulholland/ Little, Brown, $25.99), set in New York in the 1970s, when Matt Scudder was still a working cop and crime was still "the leading occupation" in his Hell's Kitchen neighborhood.