Honest Man

Honest Man is a thriller by Michael Koryta that begins with a yacht full of corpses. Seven men have been murdered aboard, including two rivals for a Senate seat, and Israel Pike is the prime suspect. He is a troubled man already notorious on Salvation Point Island for killing his own father ten years earlier. He has no friends, few options and a secret that could cost him his life, and he has to prove his innocence to survive.

Elsewhere on the island, a woman is hiding from killers. Twelve-year-old Lyman Rankin, fleeing his alcoholic father, takes shelter in an abandoned house and finds he is not alone. A mysterious woman meets him with a hatchet and a warning to keep quiet or she will kill him.

As the investigation gathers speed, the paths of Lyman, Israel and the case itself collide in ways that cannot be undone.