"It was truly a complicated web of existence, each living thing depending on another to be ether predator or its prey. He could feel his existence now in the real sense. He was nothing here in this place except for one more source of heat that was just as expendable as the smallest worm."
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Village of Tears by Christopher Abbott Trafford Publishing
book review by Wendy Strain
Like many of us, Caleb Magellan is an adult still struggling with some of the scars of childhood. In his case, it is a traumatic childhood experience and belief in his own cowardice. He lives estranged from his mother after having been estranged from his father for years before the man's death. He now lives a placid but lonely and meaningless life, dreaming of a better life where he can breathe and his canine friend Sara can run free.
The perfect opportunity presents itself when he runs into an old college friend at a local bar. Frazier has some business to take care of and asks Caleb to watch over the family house for him while he's gone. The house turns out to be a mansion set in the picturesque New Jersey countryside. Everything about it and the nearby village is perfect, and Abbott does an amazing job describing it with full sensual detail.
In fact, everything seems a little too perfect. It doesn't take long for Caleb to start noticing the almost overly produced scenes as he drives around town, and he begins receiving some alarming warnings from those he encounters from outside of town. He eventually discovers a dreadful community secret with a trail of blood leading all the way back to the Civil War. Unraveling the secret and obtaining justice may very easily cost him his life.
Short enough to be read in a day, it delivers a satisfying story with a touch of irony and continuing character growth. Written in such a way as to simultaneously entertain the aesthetic and the analytical mind, this is the perfect book to fill a lazy afternoon with graceful beauty and gently engaging suspense.
RECOMMENDED by the US Review