The People of the Broken Neck
by Silas Dent Zobal
Unbridled Books


"They rode without speaking. They rode without fear. They rode through a countryside that they felt was their own. They rode together as they'd done a hundred times before over a short barren mountaintop, beside a dry round-stoned creek, through a crease of a valley lined with violet crocuses."

Crouching in the woods that surround the A-frame cabin that was built by his own two hands on the Susquehanna riverbank, Dominick Sawyer made the irreversible decision that changed his family's life forever. He decided then and there that he and his family would run, and his daughter King and older son Clarke were begrudgingly thrust into a cross-country journey that traversed state lines and emotional boundaries. As the Sawyer family travels in stolen cars filled to the brim with secrets, readers are granted access to each of the character's inner thoughts and learn of these secrets that they refuse to share with each other. FBI agent Charlie Basin follows the family at every turn as best he can, and during his own personal journey, he comes to the realization that he is chasing a man who just wants to protect his family, much like he would his own. Basin's pursuit is so unyielding that on the outside it appears he might be hoping to find himself when he finds Dominick.

Silas Dent Zobal uses descriptive verbiage that beautifully brings still mountains and hushed woods to life in a way that seems inextricably connected to the Sawyer family's heartbeat and lifeline. Zobal also brings tangibility to a soldier's post-war trauma, as he highlights Dominick's highs and lows, as well as his flashbacks and thoughts of the future. Zobal has authored numerous works of fiction and short stories and was a winner of the Glimmer Train Fiction Open in 2012.

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