Florida prison chaplain John Jordan's search for the peace that has so long eluded him is interrupted by an unimaginable murder. Attempting to be a good man in a very bad place while also maintaining his shaky sobriety, John investigates the murder of the seven year-old adopted daughter of ex...
When I staggered out of the shower, the smell of bacon and coffee filled the air. After throwing on some clothes, I stumbled down the stairs with wet hair to find Sarah and Susan tripping over each other to cook breakfast as Tom sat at the table reading the Atlanta Journal. We had decided to keep...
It might be construed as a strange miasma for someone whose beloved grandfather was a demolition expert and who’d taken his favorite grandson out onto Alligator Alley during that highway’s construction to let him watch the blasts that turned ancient limestone into rubble and made a bombing range ...
This was not true of Pottersville. In most small towns, church attendance, like the population, rarely varies. People go to church in small towns for different reasons than they do in large cities. Attending church in a small town is as much social as it is spiritual— and often more so. It is als...
From then until now, her investment of time, talent, and true concern is so enormous it brings tears to my eyes. Her involvement in my writing, as in my life, has made me better. Far better. For profound and enduring literary influence: Ernest Hemingway, Graham Greene, John Updike, Cormac McCarth...
It was twice as big as any dry cleaners or Laundromat I had ever seen on the street. Outside, the laundry building looked like all the other structures of the institution—nondescript gray cinder block with pale blue trim. Inside, it was a large open...
“Asking or demanding?” Clip asked. “I ’on’t know. Why?” “Need to know if trouble’s waiting for me out there.” “Clip, po-leese always be trouble.” “Good point,” Clip said, removing the revolver from the table beside his bed and shoving it in the back of his suspendered pants. Clip’s shack in Shine...
Each story explores a different aspect of the character’s life and shines the spotlight on different parts of his or her personality. In the best of such anthologies, the stories build upon one another, adding layer after layer of complexity and contradiction until the character’s inner life—the ...
he said.“What?” I asked, stalling.“Pull down your goddamn pants or I’ll slit your fuckin’ throat,” he said.His voice was gravelly, as if he had been gargling with glass, and his breath smelled almost as bad as his body. He was heavy and strong, his weight and strength pinning me to the damp groun...
When the joint was filled with BYTs and hep cats and kittens all dolled up and togged out dragging their hoofs, it seemed like a decent enough place, but when it was empty you could see just what a dive it really was. By the time we arrived, the parking lot beneath the big...
Ralph Reid said. He and Father Thomas had come out of his cabin and joined us at the water’s edge. Steve shook his head. “We’ve got a little blood in a boat. Don’t even know if it’s related.” “But if it is—” Reid began. “It could belong to Father Thomas,” Steve said. “Could prove he did it.” “It ...