BOOK SAMPLER
A sense of wrath.
Author: Mary White
Revenge is a powerful motivator and patience is the key to its success.
A Sense of Wrath is an exercise in resolute patience…
16-year-old Ida Murphy found herself pregnant and unwed. An event never to be spoken of again - she was quickly, quietly bundled off to ‘work’ for relatives in in a distant city where a ‘good home’ had already been found for the baby.
Several years later, Ida met and married Jack O’Shea and welcomed first Michael then Mackenzie into the world. They have owned, lived in and managed the Greens Lake Hotel ever since.
Young Father Joe Kelly was not only obligated to his calling throughout St. Benedict’s parish but was keenly involved in St. Benedict’s school. When he could, he was more than often found sharing the O’Shea family dining table.
It was the Friday night of the 1963 Christmas break. The Hotel was packed, and its atmosphere was more raucous than usual. It was still relatively early when Father Joe Kelly decided to drive an alcohol-laden 17-year-old Mari Lippmann safely home. A howling snowstorm was growing gustier by the minute as they began to inch their way down the winding lake road. Manoeuvring a tight curve, the car skidded on a patch of ice into the path of an oncoming pickup truck. Father Joe was killed instantly, and an unscathed Mari was burdened with the blame for the death of this popular town entity.
Thirty-five years later and life-long resident Jim Hutton is missing. Now an FBI Agent, Mari Lippmann reluctantly agrees to assist with the missing person case. After only a couple of days, Jim’s body is found sunk under a beaver’s dam just in front of the now boarded up Greens Lake Hotel. Having the death determined to be accidental, Mari is quietly pleased that her return is to be short-lived - although she has enjoyed spending time with long-standing family friend Ida O’Shea and rekindling a high school romance.
Getting ready to head back to her home base, Mari learns that town Sheriff John Scalone has been found dead - apparently of an unintentional insulin overdose. With everyone rationally concurring that there is nothing more at hand than a duet of unfortunate incidents Mari, settled back in her apartment, opens an envelope mysteriously left for her and dumps the contents - an assortment of old letters, newspaper clippings and photographs - onto the coffee table.
A scatter of breadcrumbs that mark the trail of how a lifetime of seemingly unrelated events, triggered by Ida O’Shea’s teenage pregnancy, add up to a well-executed plan of revenge.
But exactly whose revenge is it?
The Novella is available at:
Amazon Kindle – ASIN - BO7CPM8RZW
Amazon Paperback – ISBN – 9781980951322 (from USA)
Read the sampler HERE
