This Dark Road to Mercy - Wiley Cash

After I've become a big fan of a writer after reading their debut novel, I am always equally excited and nervous about reading their second effort. More times than I wish, I've had the thought that more writers should follow the example of Harper Lee, recognizing that what it was they had to say got said, and  no matter how many more words they write, they won't say it any better than they did with their first book.

I'm glad Wiley Cash didn't go the Lee route, else I'd have missed this chance to get excited all over again by his deceptively simple plotting and beautifully written characters. 

This Dark Road to Mercy is not the near-gothic that his (brilliant) A Land More Kind Than Home was. It's the story of a man who kidnaps his own daughters, and the race two very different sort of men undertake to find them -- for very different reasons. 

But that's just the scaffolding around the real story: that of a flawed but loving father and his quest to win the hearts of his long-ago abandoned daughters. 

Beautiful, and subtle, and one I can recommend without reservation. 

Release Date: February 2014

William Morrow