This Dark Road to Mercy: A Novel - Hardcover

Cash, Wiley

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0062088254 ISBN 13: 9780062088253

Publisher: William Morrow, 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:

Hailed as "mesmerizing" (New York Times Book Review) and "as if Cormac McCarthy decided to rewrite Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird" (Richmond Times-Dispatch), A Land More Kind Than Home made Wiley Cash an instant literary sensation. His resonant new novel, This Dark Road to Mercy, is a tale of love and atonement, blood and vengeance, a story that involves two young sisters, a wayward father, and an enemy determined to see him pay for his sins.

When their mother dies unexpectedly, twelve-year-old Easter Quillby and her six-year-old sister, Ruby, are shuffled into the foster care system in Gastonia, North Carolina, a little town not far from the Appalachian Mountains. But just as they settle into their new life, their errant father, Wade, an ex–minor league baseball player whom they haven't seen in years, suddenly reappears and steals them away in the middle of the night.

Brady Weller, the girls' court-appointed guardian, begins looking for Wade, and quickly turns up unsettling information linking him to a multimillion-dollar robbery. But Brady isn't the only one hunting him. Also on the trail is Robert Pruitt, a mercurial man nursing a years-old vendetta, a man determined to find Wade and claim what he believes he is owed.

The combination of Cash's evocative and intimate Southern voice and those of the alternating narrators, Easter, Brady, and Pruitt, brings this soulful story vividly to life. At once captivating and heartbreaking, This Dark Road to Mercy is a testament to the unbreakable bonds of family and the primal desire to outrun a past that refuses to let go.

About this edition

• Publisher: William Morrow
• Publication date: 2014
• ISBN 10: 0062088254
• ISBN 13: 9780062088253
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 240