Rain Falls Like Mercy

Readers were first introduced to the Paint Family in Sun Going Down (May 2008), a spectacular epic about the American West. Then the sequel, Come Again No More (September 2010), recounted the Paints' saga of triumph and tragedy through the Great Depression and the Dust Bowl. Now, in RAIN FALLS LIKE MERCY, we follow the Paint family yet again as they span continents and generations during World War II.

The novel opens in May of 1941 when a young girl fleeing an abusive stepfather is seen leaving a Wyoming bus station with a handsome, young man. When a Choctaw ranch foreman finds her body in an isolated sheepherder's shack, a manhunt begins. Tom Call, the young sheriff running the murder investigation, spends day and night trying to solve the murder while finding solace in Juanita, the neglected wife of rancher Eli Paint.

Then, almost overnight, the murder case is derailed by the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. The individual, localized savagery of a brutal murder gives way to the mass savagery of World War II and the lives of everyone involved are disrupted. Eli's grandson Bobby Watson mans an anti-aircraft gun during the attack and afterwards finds himself on the front lines of the war with the U.S. Navy. Tom Call leaves Wyoming, and his now lover Juanita, to fly B-17 bombers for the Army Air Force. But even from his airbase in England, Tom can't shake the case and his suspicion falls on Pardo Bury, the psychotic son of a wealthy rancher in Wyoming.

The war ends and Pardo is released from prison, taking off on a killing rampage. As Pardo and Tom make their ways to their inevitable and shattering confrontation, RAIN FALLS LIKE MERCY displays Jack 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. In the tradition of true crime narratives like In Cold Blood, Todd's new novel grips the reader from the first page to the last.

Jack Todd based the Paint Family trilogy on letters and diaries from his family that were passed down to him by his mother. Todd is also the author of the memoir Desertion, which won the Quebec Writer's Federation First Book Prize and the Mavis Gallant Prize for Non-Fiction. He lives in Montreal.