Producer Nick Wechsler (The Road) has already purchased the film rights to still to be published novel The Prophet. Magic Mike scribe Reid Carolin has been hired to adapt the novel which won’t hit bookstores until August. A former private investigator and newspaper reporter, Michael Koryta has written a deeply haunting and suspenseful novel The Prophet.
In a masterful return to the traditional crime novel Koryta wrote a story about two brothers, Adam and Kent Austin; when the brothers were teens, their sister was kidnapped and murdered; time drove the brothers their separate ways, but the murder of another teenage girl brings the past violently back to Adam and Kent.
It’s a brilliantly paced thriller that keeps its villains at a tantalizing distance, a compelling family portrait, a study in morality that goes beyond the usual black-and-white judgments, and an entertaining spin on classic football fiction.
Koryta furthermore describes:
Kent Austin is the beloved coach of the local high school football team, a religious man and hero in the community. After years of near misses, Kent’s team has a shot at the state championship, a welcome point of pride in a town that has had its share of hardships.
Just before playoffs begin, the town and the team are thrown into shock when horrifically, impossibly, another teenage girl is found murdered. When details emerge that connect the crime to the Austin brothers, the two are forced to unite to stop a killer—and to confront their buried rage and grief before history repeats itself again.
As for Wechsler, his next project is the Ridley Scott adaptation of Cormac McCarthy’s original screenplay, The Counselor, set to star Michael Fassbender, Brad Pitt, Javier Bardem, Penelope Cruz and Cameron Diaz.
