Absolution

Author: Miriam Herin
Publisher: Novello Festival Press, Charlotte (2007 Novello Literary Award winner)
ISBN-13: 9780976096399
Website: miriamherin.com

Absolution is the story of Maggie Delaney, an idealistic wife and mother whose world implodes when her husband is murdered in a seemingly random act. When Maggie attempts to find out what really happened, her search leads her back to her Carolina roots and through the streets of modern-day Boston. In the jungles of Southeast Asia, she uncovers a legacy of secrets about the man she thought she knew -- and the troubled world they shared as they came of age together.

Reviews and comments:

Publishers Weekly: "This impressive Novello Literary Award-winning debut skillfully combines a contemporary courtroom thriller with a subtle look back at the competing passions and pressures of the Vietnam War era...."

Raleigh News & Observer: "....grips and holds like popular fiction, but its themes and complexity encourage the reader to slow down .... Absolution is not history, but maybe something better than history: an account that gathers many threads and shows in unmistakable fashion how extraordinary times change people, and how the consequences of one's actions can come decades after the actions."

Clyde Edgertron: "Absolution delicately and skillfully depicts an anguished clash between secrets and justice in the heart of Maggie Delaney, a grieving widow. In the process, it also casts a beguiling and suspenseful net back across five decades -- dropping the reader into nightmarish battles in Vietnam and also into backrooms of the 60s U.S. peace movement. Miriam Herin has written a big story, compelling and suspenseful, bringing home consequences of war and misguided love, as they refuse to stay where we might like them to stay-in the past. The Novello Literary Award has published another winner."

Judy Goldman: "In this fierce and impressive debut, Miriam Herin asks us to open our eyes wide to the hopes, failure, compassion, and cruelty of life. Absolution ventures deep into the human psyche. Remarkable in scope, the story takes us from Boston to Vietnam and back, a journey that is unsettling -- at times, harrowing -- but unquestionably spellbinding the whole way. I urge you to read this book."