This Dark Road to Mercy: A Novel - Softcover

Cash, Wiley

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0062278444 ISBN 13: 9780062278449

Publisher: Harper Large Print, 2014

Synopsis

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.

About this title

Review:

An Amazon Best Book of the Month, February 2014: This Dark Road to Mercy is equal parts family drama, Southern Gothic thriller, and road trip novel. Actually, it's more of a chase. After the sudden death of their mother, young sisters Easter and Ruby are sent to a foster home. Their long-absent father Wade appears and takes them in the middle of the night. As Wade and his girls travel west, to a destination unknown even to Wade, the three are being tracked down by their legal guardian, an ex-cop named Brady, and an ex-con named Pruitt, who has sinister intentions for Wade. Like Cash's terrific debut A Land More Kind Than Home, Mercy wrestles with themes of redemption. The perspectives alternate between Easter, Brady, and Pruitt, each with a unique view of Wade, whose own secrets slowly unravel throughout the course of Cash's dark and delicate novel. When all three characters converge--at Busch Stadium in St. Louis, no less--we discover Wade at his most honest self: a father who turns out to be too little, too late. --Kevin Nguyen

From the Back Cover:

Wiley Cash's debut, hailed as "mesmerizing" (New York Times Book Review) and "as if Cormac McCarthy decided to rewrite To Kill a Mockingbird" (Richmond Times-Dispatch), made him a literary sensation. His new novel is a tale of love and atonement, a story of two sisters, a wayward father, and an enemy determined to see him pay.

When their mother dies unexpectedly, twelve-year-old Easter and six-year-old Ruby are shuffled into foster care. But just as they settle into their new life, their errant father, Wade, reappears and steals the girls away.

Now two men are on their trail but for very different reasons—one, a former detective and the girls' court-appointed guardian, who has linked Wade to a multimillion-dollar robbery and the other, a mercurial, angry man who is determined to claim his due. Narrated in alternating voices that are at once captivating and heartbreaking, This Dark Road to Mercy is a soulful story about the ­emo-tional pull of family and the primal desire to outrun a past that refuses to let go.

About this edition

• Publisher: Harper Large Print
• Publication date: 2014
• ISBN 10: 0062278444
• ISBN 13: 9780062278449
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 352