David Corbett (1) (1953–)

This was a genre-defying novel. Part dystopia, part fantasy, part quest story. It was an engaging title narrated by Shane Riordan who has lived again and again. He's under a curse to do so until he learns what he is supposed to learn.

Currently, he is best friends with Georgie O'Halloran who suffers from depression. They met when she was in college and his was a janitor at the college. They became friends. She was intrigued by Celtic myths, and he told her lots of stories never revealing show more that they were about his past. She wrote them up and illustrated them and gave them to her lover as a gift. The lover - Reginald Feely - took her gift, claimed it was his own work, and sold it for publication. It, and the video game it inspired, became a cult hit which incited some of the factionalism that is plaguing the United States.

Shane breaks Georgie out of the hospital where she is being treated and the two take off to find Feely and gain his apology for stealing her book and intellectual property. They need to travel from the East Coast to the West Coast through a disintegrating United States filled with gangs each touting their own version of what should be. And they are being pursued by people who don't want them to interfere with the book or the video game.

I enjoyed the story once I got over the writing style which at first seemed to be filled with sentence fragments. I enjoyed learning more about Shane and what his quest was. He is definitely the main character of this one despite what the blurb seems to imply. show less

The Mercy of the Night is a book that draws you with what happened, but holds you there with the why, how and by whom of these events. I have two other books by David Corbett and I am certain of one thing - Corbett excels at creating characters. In his books they are accessible, real people who have histories, goals, dreams, flaws, and good and bad personality traits. Never one to tamper down the energy, emotion or passions surrounding disturbing issues and complicated moral dilemmas, show more Corbett introduces us to Jacqueline Garza, a prostitute and drug addict who suffered greatly as a child, still struggling to figure out how to be a survivor and not just another victim of the bad hand in life she was dealt. Through the lens of her life, we are reminded that its not where you've been, but where you want to go, that gets us closer to that finish line.
The Mercy of the Night is yet another reason for those of you who have not read a David Corbett book to rank him high in author consideration for your next binge-reading weekend. show less

The Mercy of the Night is a book that draws you with what happened, but holds you there with the why, how and by whom of these events. I have two other books by David Corbett and I am certain of one thing - Corbett excels at creating characters. In his books they are accessible, real people who have histories, goals, dreams, flaws, and good and bad personality traits. Never one to tamper down the energy, emotion or passions surrounding disturbing issues and complicated moral dilemmas, show more Corbett introduces us to Jacqueline Garza, a prostitute and drug addict who suffered greatly as a child, still struggling to figure out how to be a survivor and not just another victim of the bad hand in life she was dealt. Through the lens of her life, we are reminded that its not where you've been, but where you want to go, that gets us closer to that finish line.
The Mercy of the Night is yet another reason for those of you who have not read a David Corbett book to rank him high in author consideration for your next binge-reading weekend. show less

An amazing novel set in El Salvador that illustrates the tangled and perverse alliances that the US government has established with corrupt leaders in order to spread soft drinks and free trade to the developing world. At the center of the book is Jude, a richly realized character who is young and naive and burdened with shame because his father, a corrupt Chicago cop, committed suicide after being caught out. He has gone into the business of "executive protection" after falling in love with show more an ill-starred, battle-scarred country. But as he tries to keep an idealistic hydrologist alive, he's up against commercial interests that will ally themselves with killers before they lose access to a depleted aquifer for a soft drink factory. And in a confused move of atonement he lets himself be manipulated by one of his father's corrupt associates. The ending is deeply moving, and as timely and timeless as the Greek tragedy that inspired the story. I will be thinking about this book for a long time. show less