How it Happened

"And that is how it happened. Can we stop now?"

Kimberly Crepeaux is no good, a notorious jailhouse snitch, teen mother, and
heroin addict whose petty crimes are well-known to the rural Maine community
where she lives. So when she confesses to her role in the brutal murders of
Jackie Pelletier and Ian Kelly, the daughter of a well-known local family and
her sweetheart, the locals have little reason to believe her story.

Not Rob Barrett, the FBI investigator and interrogator specializing in telling
a true confession from a falsehood. He's been circling Kimberly and her
conspirators for months, waiting for the right avenue to the truth, and has
finally found it. He knows, as strongly as he's known anything, that
Kimberly's story-a grisly, harrowing story of a hit and run fueled
by dope and cheap beer that becomes a brutal stabbing in cold blood-is how it
happened. But one thing remains elusive: where are Jackie and Ian's bodies?

After Barrett stakes his name and reputation on the truth of Kimberly's
confession, only to have the bodies turn up 200 miles from where she said
they'd be, shot in the back and covered in a third person's DNA, the case is
quickly closed and Barrett forcibly reassigned. But something still nags at
locals, and at a local newspaper reporter who's been chasing the story as
doggedly as Barrett himself.

Reminiscent of both the epic and adventurous early writing of Stephen King and
the white-knuckled action of Lee Child (both of whom have anointed Koryta as
the next great thriller writer), HOW IT HAPPENED is a frightening, tension-
filled ride into the dark heart of rural America.