Tuesday, January 28, 2014

This Dark Road To Mercy

ThisDark Road to Mercy
Wiley Cash
Hardcover: 240 pages
Publisher: William Morrow (January 28, 2014)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0062088254
Idgie Says: 
Wiley's first book, A Land More Kind Than Home, bolted out the door like the barn was on fire.  It has garnered high acclaim and I was eager to read his sophomore effort.  I was not disappointed.  The little girls, Easter and Ruby, grabbed at me and it was heart-wrenching to see what they were forced to be put through because of the adults in their lives.  The father and mother both make horribly stupid choices with their lives and not only they, but the girls, are forced to pay for it.  

There were moments in the book of what I might consider unneeded gratuitous violence, but that's simply my opinion and perhaps another might feel it added to the storyline. 

Then ending resolved quickly, without too much fuss - which was surprising to me, but for the girls, it was definitely not "the end", simply a stopping point that left the reader chewing on a fingernail wondering what the future holds.  

Book Description:
The critically acclaimed author of the New York Times bestseller A Land More Kind Than Home—hailed as "a powerfully moving debut that reads as if Cormac McCarthy decided to rewrite Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird" (Richmond Times Dispatch)—returns with a resonant novel of love and atonement, blood and vengeance, set in western North Carolina, involving two young sisters, a wayward father, and an enemy determined to see him pay for his sins.

After their mother's unexpected death, twelve-year-old Easter and her six-year-old sister Ruby are adjusting to life in foster care when their errant father, Wade, suddenly appears. Since Wade signed away his legal rights, the only way he can get his daughters back is to steal them away in the night.
Brady Weller, the girls' court-appointed guardian, begins looking for Wade, and he quickly turns up unsettling information linking Wade to a recent armored car heist, one with a whopping $14.5 million missing. But Brady Weller isn't the only one hunting the desperate father. Robert Pruitt, a shady and mercurial man nursing a years-old vendetta, is also determined to find Wade and claim his due.

Narrated by a trio of alternating voices, This Dark Road to Mercy is a story about the indelible power of family and the primal desire to outrun a past that refuses to let go.