Book ~ "The Silent Hour" (2009) Michael Koryta

From Goodreads ~

Whisper Ridge
Home to Dreams
October 2, 1992--April 12, 1996

So reads the strange epitaph carved beside the door of the home called Whisper Ridge, a multimillion-dollar piece of architectural majesty that once housed the beginnings of a unique program for paroled murderers. The program never got off the ground, however, despite how passionate a woman named Alexandra Cantrell, daughter of a notorious Mafia don, and her husband, Joshua, had been about it. Still uninhabited twelve years later, the house remains as a strange monument to dangerous secrets, falling into ruin as the forest grows up around it.

While the couple’s abrupt exit was unusual, it was also not regarded as suspicious - until the bones of Alexandra’s husband are found buried in the woods.

Private investigator Lincoln Perry isn’t thrilled about the situation or his client: Parker Harrison served fifteen years for murder but claims Alexandra’s intervention saved his life. Now he wants to find her - and he’s not the only one.

What seems at first like the simplest of jobs proves to be an undertaking that will challenge both Perry’s abilities as a detective and his commitment to that calling. With a new partner to train and a case that leads straight to the heart of the Cleveland organized crime scene, Perry finds himself glancing over his shoulder at every turn, pushing the bounds of safety even as he backs away.

Lincoln is a private investigator who starts getting letters from an ex-con named Harrison who wants his help to find a woman named Alexandra.  Alexandra's father and brother were part of the mafia and when her father died, he left her a lot of money which she eventually used to build a house to start a program for paroles ... Harrison was one of those paroles.  Twelve years ago she and her husband, Joshua, disappeared.  Then Joshua's bones are found.

Ken, the private investigator than Joshua's parents had hired to find him, shows up and asks Lincoln to help figure out what happened.  It's a case that Ken hadn't been able to solve and it's bothered him ever since.  Working together, they investigate to figure out who killed Joshua and where is Alexandra.

I enjoyed the writing style of this book.  It is the fourth and last in the Lincoln Perry series and it's been about eight years since I read the first three.  Though it is part of a series, it does work as a stand alone.  It's been seven years since this was written ... I wonder if the author has decided that he won't continue with this series.  The book didn't end as if there wouldn't be any more.  As a head's up, there is swearing.

I liked Lincoln.  As much as he doesn't want to, he can't help pitching in to help.  I found that there were quite a few characters (the paroles and the bad guys) and I had a bit of a hard time keeping them straight.