Thin Places

As reminders during certain moments:  “Time is too expensive to be spent in anger.”  Those places where God shows up multiply when Finn is re-united with his own daughter, seven-year-old Lacy, and with his father, who shows up as savior during Chloe’s kidnapping.  Even Chloe’s dog Jazz has his own form of spiritual connection.

Add coincidences to that thin space; characters appear at the beginning, leave, then suddenly re-enter the story – all for good reasons.  Co-prisoner Jules chums up to Finn while in the Huntsville, Texas, cell; at the finger-biting end, he then kidnaps Calvery’s daughter, along with Duke (the felon who framed Calvery for the murder), to find the treasure.

Though it does need a mind map to figure out who knows who, where, and why, the flow of narrative is almost inexorable, and compelling.  Characters are beautifully drawn; Finn Tully’s Mom, Lucia, who’s dying, finds love in strange places while she calmly accepts her fate:  “I can still buy green bananas,” she tells Finn.  Between fishing-boat captain Chloe, Lucia’s Audubon-loving Ovid, and Native American Millard, these are people you’ll want to visit again, and again.

Prisoner Finn Tully befriends Death Row inmate and supposed murderer Calvery Thomas, who entrusts both a secret treasure and an estranged daughter to Finn, right before his execution.  Readers will cheer for Finn’s reformation, despite the plot’s many twists and turns.

THIN PLACES is an elegantly written, captivating narrative of redemption.

Reviewed by Barbara Jacobs for IndieReader