If She Wakes
Michael Koryta
Little, Brown and Company 2019
393 pages
Our reviewers fight to read the latest thriller by Michael Koryta. This time I won. This is the kind of thriller you do not want to start if you do not have plenty of time ahead of you as If She Wakes is very, very hard to put down.
In If She Wakes Koryta has created a great heroine, a superb villain, strong and interesting secondary characters that all serve a very original plot. If She Wakes on Kindle
College student Tara Beckley is showing a famous lecturer around her college town when a truck runs into them, killing the lecturer and sending Tara in a coma. Former race car driver and insurance investigator Abby Kaplan gets to the scene of the crash and smells a rat. People related to tne accident start dying and Abby figures out it all has to do with a cell phone belonging to the lecturer. A young hitman named Dax Blackwell soon tracks down Abby and forces her to work with him to get the phone and unlock it.
The cell phone is locked with a facial recognition device and only Tara Beckley can open it. The problem is Tara Beckley is in a coma but fully aware of what is going on around her. She suffers from locked in syndrome.
If She Wakes cleverly balances two different plot lines. The story around Tara’s slow recovery and the story involving Abby Kaplan and the very clever and remorseless Dax Blackwell.
Of particular note in If She Wakes is how strong the women in this thriller are. This not only includes Abby and Tara but also Tara’s sister Shannon who goes to bat for her sister time and time again and another secondary character whose identity must not be revealed less it becomes a spoiler. To Koryta’s credit, these characters are not male tropes disguised with a feminine name but fully realized, distinguishable, and believable women.
Michael Koryta’s If She Wakes is the kind of thriller you do keep on your bookshelf so you can get back to it a few years from now and enjoy it again. You will also want to lend it to friends but they will not want to give it back so don’t.
Other reviewed titles by Michael Koryta:
2 thoughts on “If She Wakes – Michael Koryta”