Reviewed by Anne Boling for Readers' Favorite

In The Ridge, we meet a variety of characters: Deputy Sheriff Kevin Kimble, a man in love with the woman who shot him; Audrey Clark, the keeper of sixty-seven large cats, including a rare black panther; Wyatt French, a peculiar man who keeps a light burning in the lighthouse he built; Jaclyn, the woman who shot Kimble; and several other secondary characters. This book is a mixture of mystery and horror. The plot begins with a suicide or was it... "Sheriff which would you rather investigate, a murder or a suicide?"

Kimble has frequent flashbacks of the moment when Jaclyn shot him. As the story continues, there are other deaths. Everything seems to lead back to the lighthouse, or does it? Could the large cats be responsible for a death?

I’ve been listening to The Ridge by Michael Koryta in my spare time for a couple of weeks. As I neared the end I could not sleep without knowing what would happen. The first thing that caught my attention was the location, Blade Ridge in eastern Kentucky. I’m grateful that Koryta managed to express the beauty of the area and not concentrate on the culture as too many authors do. Koryta grew up in eastern Kentucky but left to pursue his dream of being a writer. I sensed that he was expressing inner feelings in this book. The area is beautiful beyond words, but the culture too often takes residents captive and never allows them to leave the area.

I was quickly caught up in the plot. Robert Petkoff’s voice helped to establish the ambiance of the tale. When I first began to listen, I assumed The Ridge was a murder mystery. The suspense slowly began to build, and suddenly I knew this book was more than a mystery, more than a murdered resided on that ridge. Koryta developed the characters, even the secondary ones. He breathed life into them and made them into characters I cared about. The fate of more than one disturbed me. Kimble is the lead character; he exhibits a self sacrificing strength. I very much enjoyed The Ridge only now I’m afraid of the dark…Dean Koontz and Stephen King just may have met their match.