Scan barcode
A review by amandagstevens
Blue Cloak by Shannon McNear
4.0
A dark novel based on an even darker slice of history: the murder spree of the Harpes, a team of serial killers (brothers or cousins; history isn’t sure) who butchered their way across the Kentucky and Tennessee Wilderness during the last few years of the 18th century.
The book is told with a raw and unflinching immediacy, tracking the rampage of the Harpes from the point of view of Sally Rice, one of their three held-in-common wives. The other two point-of-view characters are fictional: Rachel Taylor, a friend of Sally’s from before her marriage, and Ben Langford, a lawyer new to the frontier who joins the various manhunts that sought the Harpes and their wives.
The author’s notes both before and after her story express Ms. McNear’s wrestling as she uncovered more and more detail of the gruesome crimes committed by the Harpes. How does a Christian tell a story like this? How to reconcile Sally’s prayers for deliverance with the delay of said deliverance? There doesn’t seem to be an answer in the story, and perhaps that’s the most devastating thing about the book. All three primary characters pour out countless prayers from these pages, as those in history likely did against what must have been a spiritual war as well as a physical hunt for evildoers.
It’s a well-written, deeply-researched novel. And it’s a tough novel. I might add to this review later after more mulling, but for now this is all the conclusion I have.
The book is told with a raw and unflinching immediacy, tracking the rampage of the Harpes from the point of view of Sally Rice, one of their three held-in-common wives. The other two point-of-view characters are fictional: Rachel Taylor, a friend of Sally’s from before her marriage, and Ben Langford, a lawyer new to the frontier who joins the various manhunts that sought the Harpes and their wives.
The author’s notes both before and after her story express Ms. McNear’s wrestling as she uncovered more and more detail of the gruesome crimes committed by the Harpes. How does a Christian tell a story like this? How to reconcile Sally’s prayers for deliverance with the delay of said deliverance? There doesn’t seem to be an answer in the story, and perhaps that’s the most devastating thing about the book. All three primary characters pour out countless prayers from these pages, as those in history likely did against what must have been a spiritual war as well as a physical hunt for evildoers.
It’s a well-written, deeply-researched novel. And it’s a tough novel. I might add to this review later after more mulling, but for now this is all the conclusion I have.