A father and two, young children, Sam, the teenage brother who now must provide solace and comfort for, his young sister, who is also deaf, Trina. It is about the man left behind, mourning his wife of many years, the woman who smoothed out his rough edges. On the surface it is a story of a car crash, a wife and mother of two, apparently drunk driving kills the wife of the town's chief lawman, a beloved librarian. This is one of those books that upon finishing had me shaking my head and trying to process what I just read. It is a gorgeously written book that merges the sly wonder of magical realism and alternate history with the depth and characterization of literary fiction.

Keith Rosson paints outside the typical genre lines with his brilliant debut novel. Meanwhile, Sheriff Dave Dobbs and officer Nick Hayslip must try to put their own sorrows aside to figure out who, or what, is wreaking havoc on their once-idyllic town. At the heart of the story are Sam Finster, a senior in high school mourning the death of his mother, and his sister Trina, a nine-year-old deaf girl who denies her grief by dreaming of a nuclear apocalypse as Cold War tensions rise.

The Mercy of the Tide follows four people drawn irrevocably together by a recent tragedy as they do their best to reclaim their lives-leading them all to a discovery that will change them and their town forever. But then strange things start happening-a human skeleton is unearthed in a local park and mutilated animals begin appearing, seemingly sacrificed, on the town’s beaches. A sleepy coastal town, where crime usually consists of underage drinking down at a Wolf Point bonfire.

The Mercy of the Tide by Keith Rosson