Title: The Scent of Rain and Lightning
Author: Nancy Pickard
Genre: Mystery
The Blurb: One beautiful summer afternoon, Jody Linder receives shocking news: The man convicted of murdering her father is being released from prison and returning to the small town of Rose, Kansas. It has been twenty-three years since that stormy night when her father was shot and killed and her mother disappeared, presumed dead. Neither the protective embrace of Jody’s three uncles nor the safe haven of her grandparents’ ranch could erase the pain caused by Billy Crosby on that catastrophic night. Now Billy Crosby is free, thanks to the efforts of his son, Collin, a lawyer who has spent most of his life trying to prove his father’s innocence. Despite their long history of carefully avoiding each other in such an insular community, Jody and Collin find that they share an exclusive sense of loss. As Jody revisits old wounds, startling truths emerge about her family’s tragic past. But even through struggle and hardship, she still dares to hope for a better future.
My Thoughts: The Scent of Rain and Lightning is more than just a mystery, it is also a brilliant look at the various interactions and relationships found between people in a small country town, and within a family unit. It also looks at how people react in times of crisis and the mob mentality. The story slowly unfolds and proceeds at a pace that you think is very gentle until you realise that you are actually on the edge of your seat by the climax of the story. Once Billy is released, Jody finds out that while he was hated by most of the community as a truly vile man, there are doubts that he actually committed this particular crime and that evidence and eyewitness accounts were not followed up. This leaves Jody having to deal with the possibility that if Billy didn’t murder her parents – then who did? Jody, along with her family and friends need to revisit the events of that fateful night and discover what the truth really was.
Rating: A – Was Amazing – a real page turner and read in one sitting
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I have had this on my want to read list for a while. Thanks for sharing your review!