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Book Summary and Reviews of Rain Falls Like Mercy by Jack Todd

Rain Falls Like Mercy by Jack Todd

Rain Falls Like Mercy

The Paint Trilogy, #3

by Jack Todd

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  • Published:
  • Nov 2011, 304 pages
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About this book

Book Summary

The concluding volume of the Paint family trilogy, Rain Falls Like Mercy opens with the murder investigation of a young girl in Wyoming in mid-1941.

Tom Call, the young sheriff running the investigation, falls in love with Juanita, the wife of Eli Paint, whose son Leo and grandson Bobby Watson are on duty with the U.S. Navy. Almost overnight, the case is derailed by the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, disrupting the lives of all involved. Bobby mans an anti-aircraft gun during the attack. Tom joins the U.S. Air Force and is deployed to England to fly bombers, still trying to pursue his murder investigation. His suspicion falls on Pardo Bury, the psychotic son of a wealthy rancher in Wyoming.

As Pardo and Tom make their ways to their inevitable and shattering confrontation, Rain Falls Like Mercy displays Todd's uncanny ability to zero in on his characters' emotional lives while simultaneously painting a sweeping picture of the historical events that shape their destinies.

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Reviews

Media Reviews

"Starred Review. The evil of Pardo, small, handsome, and vicious, permeates the tale from beginning to end, but so does the daily bravery of the unforgettable Paints." - Publishers Weekly

"Starred Review. The final showdown between good and evil hits the reader like a knife to the gut. A brilliant, compelling, at times repulsive and highly readable novel." - Kirkus Reviews

"Starred Review. A sweeping story... Lean yet visceral prose... Todd masterfully captures both the larger historical moment and the more intimate details of family life." - Booklist

This information about Rain Falls Like Mercy was first featured in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.

Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.

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Author Information

Jack Todd

Jack Todd is the author of the novels Sun Going Down and Come Again No More and the memoir Desertion, which won the Quebec Writer's Federation First Book Prize and the Mavis Gallant Prize for Non-Fiction. Find him online at https://jacktoddbooks.wordpress.com/.

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