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Title: Scorched Earth by David L. Robbins ISBN: 0-553-38179-2 Publisher: Bantam Pub. Date: 04 March, 2003 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $13.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.71 (7 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: Twist leaves egg on my face
Comment: The venue for SCORCHED EARTH is Good Hope, Virginia, where blue-collar mill workers Elijah and Clara Waddell endure the anguish of parenting a deformed baby girl, Nora, an infant so handicapped that she dies in her mother's arms in the hospital delivery suite. The child is quickly put to rest in the cemetery of the Victory Baptist Church in the plot of Clara's maternal family line. But, there's a problem. For over two-hundred years, the congregation has been exclusively white. Nora is of mixed race, Elijah being Black and Clara Caucasian. Victory Baptist's thirteen deacon's subsequently vote, over the objections of the young pastor, the spiritually tortured Thomas Derby, to have the child exhumed and re-buried in the cemetery of the town's Baptist church for Blacks. The night after the exhumation, Victory Baptist is burned to the ground, and Elijah is arrested on-site for arson. Nat Deeds, a former county prosecutor who quit his job and fled Good Hope after his wife admitted to sleeping with another man, and who's now struggling to set up a private law practice in nearby Richmond, is pressured by the presiding judge to return to his birthplace and defend Elijah, who adamantly insists on his innocence. Deeds must now go up against his old boss, the posturing Ed Fentress, who's prosecuting for the commonwealth with the next election in mind. Nat hasn't a shred of a case, and it gets worse when the body of Amanda Talley, the teenage daughter of the county sheriff, is found in the burned rubble of the church. Amanda had apparently been raped, then burned in the fire.
I believed Elijah when he claimed to be innocent. Indeed, I immediately knew who did it. And, for a few pages near the end, it appeared I was right. Pretty darn smug I was, too. At that point, I would've extolled SCORCHED EARTH not as a mystery, but as story of three childhood acquaintances - Deeds, Derby, and Talley - grappling with personal demons. But a final plot twist at the end caught me completely broadside and made me feel the fool. I guess I should read more.
Robbin's has a flair for descriptive writing and an understanding of humanity. As an example:
"Mayhem is the by-product of civilization ... It's the effluent of good intentions, loyalties, contracts, desires, and love ... The quietest of us, the simplest of us ... is a keg. A fuse burns inside everyone. What is different in each man and woman is only the length of the fuse."
Robbins has previously written two superb novels of World War Two: WAR OF THE RATS and THE END OF WAR. Focusing on a vastly different milieu, SCORCHED EARTH is as good, or better, as anything John Grisham has written about local politics, race, and justice in the Old South. I can't recommend this book too highly.
Rating: 5
Summary: I must join in on the praise for this book!
Comment: A friend recommended this book, or I never would have discovered it. I'm so glad I did. A bi-racial baby dies ten minutes after her birth, and she is buried in the cemetary of the white church, which her mother's family has attended for generations. The deacons of the church decide to exhume her body and have the family bury her in the black cemetary down the road. That night the white church burns under mysterious circumstances. Did Elijah, the black father, burn it--along with the young woman inside? The rest of the book is a legal battle to determine who
the arsonist/murderer really is. The book was fascinating, and the writing was poetic at times. There were unexpected twists and turns to the ending. It is exactly the kind of book that makes a very satisfying read for me.
Rating: 4
Summary: worth waiting for the ending
Comment: while at times a bit overwrought, this is a superbly written novel that climaxes nicely. the characters are well developed and you find yourself caring for their outcomes. while I guessed the ending early on, I often thought I had guessed wrongly and only in the end did I find that I had guessed correctly.
a good read, although sometimes it takes awhile to get to the dialogue.
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Title: The End of War: A Novel of the Race for Berlin by David L. Robbins ISBN: 0553581384 Publisher: Bantam Books Pub. Date: 29 May, 2001 List Price(USD): $6.99 |
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Title: War of the Rats: A Novel by David L. Robbins ISBN: 055358135X Publisher: Bantam Books Pub. Date: 06 June, 2000 List Price(USD): $6.99 |
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Title: Last Citadel: A Novel of the Battle of Kursk by David L. Robbins ISBN: 0553801775 Publisher: Bantam Pub. Date: 01 August, 2003 List Price(USD): $24.95 |
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Title: Enemy at the Gates: The Battle for Stalingrad by William Craig ISBN: 1568523688 Publisher: Konecky & Konecky Pub. Date: August, 2001 List Price(USD): $12.98 |
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Title: Lay That Trumpet in Our Hands by Susan Carol McCarthy ISBN: 0553381032 Publisher: Bantam Pub. Date: 01 April, 2003 List Price(USD): $12.95 |
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