Thomas Holland’s VESSELS OF WRATH transports the reader back to Arkansas in 1963, to a small town and a protagonist scarred by past conflicts and preparing for new ones, trying to do the right thing in a world too often corrupt and twisted by injustice of all kinds. It’s one of the best sort of historical novels – bringing the past to life in clear, painful and beautiful color, capturing the worries and fears, hopes and promise of those who belonged to those times and lived in that world. Big Ray is a man scarred by World War II and the lives he couldn’t save, whose heart was broken when the woman he left behind, thinking him dead, married a man he despises, who fears the darkness of Vietnam on the horizon facing his growing sons – but who retains for all that a solid commitment to justice, a willing determination to love the woman he married as well as he loved and loves his lost Grace, and a willingness to give everything he has to protect the people dear to him. He is by no means a pure and holy knight in shining armor – he has his flaws, his broken places, and a simmering anger against those who hurt those he loves – but he has a solid core of justice that will not let him fail to do the right thing in the end, even if it means saving the person he hates most in the world for the sake of the one he loves best.

Holland’s other characters are well-drawn and fully-fleshed out, some cruel and selfish, trying to get what they can from others, some strong and loving souls trying to sustain themselves and others with dignity and grace, some driven by vengeance, some by justice, some just trying to get by, but all fully and truly human. The complexities and quarrels of local small town life are reflected and tied to the larger conflicts of a nation uneasily at war with itself, the scars on the souls of the individual characters part of the larger scars on the nation as a whole. The author deftly portrays both the darkness and the richness of the time, showing how loving family bonds for some can be traps and prisons for others, how efforts to remedy injustices of the past can be twisted to serve personal quarrels, how past generations reacted to the wounds and joys of their youth and in turn passed on both growth and new wounds to their children. The story itself has plenty of action, plot twists, and suspense to keep the pages turning, and there are new revelations up until the end.

Thomas Holland’s VESSELS OF WRATH is a powerful and thought-provoking read for those interested in relatively recent American history, as well as those who just enjoy a good mystery with strong character development and a well-thought-out plot.

~Catherine Langrehr for IndieReader