Washed-up cinematographer Eric Shaw has returned to Chicago after his Hollywood career implodes only to allow his marriage to disintegrate while he wallows in bitterness. Taking a break from compiling family funeral films, Shaw accepts a job to research and film wealthy family patriarch Campbell Bradford’s unspoken youth in the small towns of West Baden and French Lick in southwestern Indiana.
Armed with a healthy retainer and an antique bottle of water bearing a surprisingly cheerful underworld guardian, Shaw quickly settles in to the majestic domed West Baden Springs Hotel, which once sparkled with Hollywood celebrities, America’s wealthiest citizens and infamous mob bosses, and has just reopened for business for twenty-first century guests.
Eric Shaw Experiences Supernatural Twist
Because of the “medicinal” springs in the area, the French Lick Springs Resort and West Baden Springs Hotel witnessed an early 20th century boom, increased by West Baden’s magnificent domed structure. Shaw, inspired by the atmosphere and puzzled by the increasingly cold bottle of Pluto Water, takes sips of the sulfuric-tinged water that originally came from Springs Valley.
There seems to be an almost electric charge of energy in the lush valley nestled among the southern Indiana hills and the Lost River adds to the mystique with its underground river channels and occasional return to the surface.
Shaw’s journey veers from the normal low-key job he expected when he’s suddenly offered $75,000 to stop making his inquiries by a strange man while he’s also harassed by bitter local Josiah Bradford.
Bradford, a potential heir to Campbell’s vast Chicago fortune, embodies the stereotype of uneducated limited potential but soon becomes much more than just a nuisance in his quest to stop Shaw. Meanwhile, Shaw meets another researcher in the form of an Indiana University student named Kellen, who has been tracking down a missing bootlegger from the same era as Campbell Bradford’s youth.
Adding to the mix is Anne McKinney, an octogenarian trained storm watcher whose talents and keen intellect help Shaw with both his background information and with his developing addict-like interest in the French Lick Pluto Water.
Author and Journalist Michael Kortya
Michael Kortya (Envy the Night) weaves the area's astonishing documented past and contributions to national architecture with believable characters in his imaginative supernatural thriller which respects both modern local residents and the historical tragedy of the era’s economic collapse as the rest of the country sank into depression.
The book's details about West Baden Springs Hotel and its resurrection by Bill and Gayle Cook from faded yellow crumbling walls and weed-throttled abandonment is authentic as is the companion historical information about the French Lick Resort.
French Lick and West Baden Offers Perfect Setting for Thriller
So Cold the River proves to be worth its price as an excellent story which deftly combines plenty of good storytelling and history plus a little bit of horror and romance to please most fiction readers.
Publishing Information
Kortya, Michael. So Cold the River. New York: Little, Brown, and Co., 2010. ISBN: 978-0-316-05363-1
Bonnye Good - Bonnye Busbice Good received an Editor's Choice award for her article on Your Historic Home's Interior Design Secrets and has also written ...
Join the Conversation