FOR those who have some familiarity with modern fiction of the American Deep South, it will be almost immediately apparent that Wiley Cash may eventually rank alongside established authors of the regional psychological thriller such as the notable Greg Iles, for example. Iles’ Mortal Fear and Black Cross are suspense-filled masterpieces, though his canvas is inevitably vaster and more ambitious than that used by Cash.

Cash’s debut novel, A Land More Kind Than Home, was rated Best Debut Crime Novel by the prestigious Crime Writers’ Association. His second endeavour centres on the lives of two pre-teen girls from Gastonia, North Carolina, who have been placed in foster care after their mother dies from a drug overdose. Easter and Ruby Quillby’s father, Wade Chesterfield, had given up parental rights to them, having been determined by the courts as being an unfit parent. Blood is thicker than water, however, and the morally inept, but nonetheless loving, parent returns to claim them by hook or by crook.

Wade kidnaps the girls from their foster home, though Cash is careful to note that he needs to use no force since both children hold him in a measure of ambivalent and restrained but genuine affection. A hunt for the girls (ranging from Myrtle Beach and Charleston to St. Louis) commences, officially conducted by the police, and semi-officially by their court appointed guardian, Brady Weller. Weller combats demons of his own over the course of the book; he was forced to resign from a sterling career on the police force due to a tragic incident that scarred the lives of both him and his family.

Matters become complicated by the fact that Wade has made formidable enemies in the world of crime, including an amoral and cruel thug named Bob Pruitt. A reckless theft has made Wade richer than he has ever been before, but additionally his days are numbered, and he knows that. Cash takes pains to ensure that the reader sympathises with a desperate father’s sentiments towards his daughters; feelings that are no less sincere regardless of their being muddled. Brady Weller’s feelings towards Easter and Ruby are also quasi-parental (they are narrative surrogates for his own daughter with whom he has a tense relationship), and Cash’s novel ultimately works better as a microcosm of familial love and discord, as opposed to a fast-paced thriller.

This is not to say that the novel does not possess some genuinely chilling moments. Pruitt’s cold determination and mutilated exterior reminds one of Stephen King’s hitman John Rainbird, from The Firestarter. But there is no emotional softening of Pruitt at any point over the course of the book. In this manner Cash is far more realistic than the romantic-minded King. The novel’s most oddly inexplicable and truly brutal murder can be laid directly at Pruitt’s door; an ugly point that reminds one of precisely how much danger Wade has placed his children in, regardless of his love for them. Male aggression is par for course in novels such as those of John Grisham and Greg Iles, and Cash is no exception when it comes to delineating vital aspects of the criminal underbelly of the rural South. Even Brady Weller engages in an impressively heroic bout of action against the bad guys. Perhaps Cash can be faulted for the dearth of well-developed older women in his novel; though one must be generous and admit that it may well be that paucity that subtly moves his plot forward.

The main problem with the book lies not in Cash’s writing per se, but in the scope of his narrative. Far too much is crammed into what ultimately prove to be a rather sketchy 230 pages, and the uneven nature of the book is evident from the juxtaposition of highly developed scenarios alongside fleeting ones. Wade was a promising baseball player for the Gastonia Rangers before his lack of fortitude put paid to a potentially lucrative career, and while Cash’s desire to repeatedly hammer home this point is understandable, too many allusions to the game detract from the nature of the hunt for the girls. Since Cash appears well-informed on a variety of diverse topics pertinent to the Deep South including race, crime, sports, and family dynamics, it would be worth his while to attempt to write a collection of short stories or vignettes that independently encapsulate these concerns. I will not go as far as to say that he deliberately wishes to be Grisham, King, and Iles rolled into one, but the book does suffer from this ‘patchwork effect’ to which I have just alluded.

This issue of narrative confusion may arise partly from the use of three narrative voices over the course of the novel: Easter’s, Pruitt’s and Weller’s. To Cash’s literary credit, the tone of all three comes across as authentic, but the machinations of the plot would have been clearer had the author resorted to an external voice, unrelated to the characters of the book. Ironically, Cash’s command over simple but effective language is so strong that we would have understood why Easter is, sadly, forced to grow up too fast and too soon, without us even needing to be privy to her thoughts in the novel. But one need not belabour this point concerning lack of cohesion any further. It is definitively clear that Cash is a talented upcoming writer, who may eventually produce a work that can easily hold its own against those of some of his more notably illustrious predecessors.

The reviewer is Assistant Professor of Social Sciences and Liberal Arts at the Institute of Business Administration

This Dark Road to Mercy

(Novel)

By Wiley Cash

Doubleday, US

ISBN 0062088254

230pp.