Title: This Dark Road to Mercy
Release Date: January 28/2014
Adquired: Print copy provided by publisher
Goodreads: ADD
Purchase: Amazon/Indigo/Book Depository
The critically-acclaimed author of the New York Times bestseller A Land More Kind Than Home returns with a resonant novel of love and atonement, blood and vengeance, involving 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 and her six-year-old sister Ruby are shuffled into the foster care system in Gastonia, North Carolina, a 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 appears and wants to spend more time with them. Unfortunately, Wade has signed away legal rights to his daughters, and the only way he can get Easter and Ruby back is to steal them away in the middle of 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.
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I don't read enough books by male authors, though when I do, it's always an interesting thing to read about how they write female characters, especially young female characters. I thought Wiley Cash was accurate in his portrayal of two young girls: one only at the tender age of 7, and a pre-teen of 12. Overall, however, This Dark Road to Mercy failed to capture my full attention-the story line started out flat, and continued that way without much deviation or excitement.
Told from three alternating POVS, This Dark Road to Mercy was a wild goose chase, with flashbacks and resentment thrown in for good measure. An estranged father kidnaps his two daughters (one being Easter, POV #1) from their group home, loaded with cash and a reason to run. The person hot on their trail, Pruitt (POV #2), has a vendetta and his own troubled back story to tell. All the while, Brady Weller (POV #3), is taking his role as ad litem of the kidnapped girls to a whole new level, as he helps uncover the link between the disappearance of the girls, and another open crime case.
I felt like this book had the best intentions, and some intensely good raw material to work with, so it was unfortunate that it ended up reading like an episode of a mediocre prime time detective show. When the POV alternated, I only knew it did because the name above the chapter told me so, otherwise, all three narrators blended into one collective, dull, voice-I wouldn't have been able to tell them apart if there wasn't dialogue in each section. The saving grace of This Dark Road to Mercy was Wade Chesterfield, the estranged father. His character was the only one to invoke enough emotion in me to continue pressing on. His desperation, and the fact that his motives were the reason for pretty much the story line of the entire book, made him the stand out character in my eyes.
Main qualm: Cash's use of baseball terms, facts, and players were completely lost on me-baseball is one of my least favourite sports, and I, unfortunately, tended to glaze over those moments in the book.
This Dark Road to Mercy just wasn't for me, though I could definitely see it being the exact read that someone else would enjoy, especially a reader with an affinity for sports and detective novels. There seems to be much more to be found in Wiley's other work, so I will definitely be checking that out!
Recommended for Fans of: Mystery, Baseball, Robert Rotenberg, Harlan Coben, John Grisham.
Challenges: Goodreads 100 Book Goal
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Thank-you to Trish from TLC Book Tours for hosting this tour, and to William Morrow for sending me a print copy to review!
While I definitely like a book where baseball and detecting comes into play, I so hate reading a book from alternating POVS so I'll probably give this one a pass.
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