The ad I saw says: "Friday Night Lights meets In Cold Blood"

What could that mean? I must find out!

Clishe and not really so interesting. Too "american" for me. ( )

The writing is mostly okay. There are a few clunker sentences that stand out but generally it’s not bad, and there is good use of sentence length and style for variety and for different types of situations. Dialogue is okay and there are some strong elements in how the plot works its way through. Contrasted with that, though, are some predictable elements (damaged character finds release through vengeance killing/death), and some strains on belief (bad guy turns out to be manipulated by the true bad guy, who was a spiritual guide to a main character and a peripheral figure, but in reality is a psychopath?), but my biggest issue is with the characters.

The characters have, well, characteristics. Drinking or religion, football player sized bodies, jobs, relationships to each other, histories, roles in the story, emotion-like reactions to situations. But they’re flat figures and feel like a compendium of traits rather than a personality with facets. This is a little different from Dan Brown and his cardboard cutouts that he uses to execute the plot. Kortya has spent time adding elements to his characters and has tried to be consistent in terms of how that character might react to a given situation, but he fails to make them breathe on their own. Like Dr. Frankestein he has collected the parts but, unlike the good doctor, he can’t find the spark of life. There are moments that are close; thinking about the property that they might buy to start a new life together, and other internal, intimate moments that don’t feel so force fed by the plot and that make the characters almost human, but there aren’t enough. Instead, the characters are mostly puppets, doing and purporting to feel what the script requires them to do, not quite feeling or thinking or seeing or experiencing as if they were real people.

The villains are the worst examples. They’re bad, just because, they’re bad. The term psychopath is brought up by the investigator, and Koryta uses that as carte blanche to not have to explain why the mastermind does anything he does, thereby limiting the fear or care that he produces. He’s simply the bad guy, the one who has to die to end the story. The other villain has a little more backstory supplied by his brother, but when confronted he’s pretty easily duped and disposed of.

Again, it’s not awful. It can be done, using antagonists that have limited dimensions when the primary story is how they force the protagonists to work out their issues, but if the protagonists are not fully flesh and blood, having thin foils makes it worse. ( )

I think this book is suffering from false advertising: It looks like a run of the mill thriller, but it's really a book about people, and guilt, and sports as the heart of a town that just happens to include some elements of a thriller.

The story was great. It was carefully and respectfully told and while I didn't notice anything notable about the writing, it faded into the background well enough to let the story shine through. That's something a lot of authors struggle with, and I appreciate this author's work in that regard. This was a quiet and sad book, but a very good one and well worth the read. ( )

When I started this book, I thought I was in for a long, uninteresting read because the "soundtrack," if you will, of this story is football. And I am not a football girl. I was a cheerleader, but I didn't give a crap about the home team. I wanted to wear the cute outfit. So I jumped when the other girls jumped and I clapped when they clapped -- not caring one bit if we won or lost all those Friday night games.

So, I start reading about a community with 2 dead girls and deep roots in football and as the story unfolds, we're given detailed plays and drills and formations along with information about the tragedies -- and I was hooked. Mr. Koryta deftly took a book heavy with football stuff and made it a story that I cared about, characters I cared about and a mystery and murder that needed solved. I invested myself because his story development and writing skills demanded no less from me.

Anyone who lives, loves, breathes football will love this story. And those of you like me? Who don't give a rat's left nut about the gridiron? You are going to love it too. The murder that needs solved will keep your eyes moving across the page. The last couple chapters were hard to get through, watery eyes and a choke in your throat will do that sometimes. And yes, even a strong wash of nostalgia from my own days of the big important game tugged just a little bit.

Tomislav Tikulin did the cover art and while it is very beautiful, I'm not sure what it has to do with the story. A detail I must have missed somewhere as I was quickly devouring the book.

I am very upset that I have probably missed many Cemetery Dance editions by this guy. I will definitely seek out more of this author's work. ( )