Rated  of 5
by Duane F. (cape girardeau, MO)
The Scent of Rain and Lightning by Nancy Pickard
With all the fury the title conveys, this book thrusts the reader into a story of one family's power over a small town. The Linder family members are the pillars of the community. But now their past history races against the coming storm, which will once again impact the whole town.
As with most small towns, the Linder's lives are intertwined with people's misconceptions of good and evil, have and have not, and love and betrayal. As the storm clouds begin to gather, Jody Linder's world is rocked by the news that the man who murdered her father twenty three years ago, has been released from prison on a legal technicality and is headed directly for her.
As Jody struggles to understand what really happened that night when her father died and her mother went missing, she is faced with the fact that she must re-evaluate her family and herself. The town, long silent about what they witnessed, must also own up to the truth about themselves and how they see the Linders.
This was a book I found hard to put down. It is written with beauty and symbolism. The austere plains allow a coming storm to be viewed from a great distance and not fully comprehend its magnitude. Thunder and lightning give only glimpses of enlightenment, and Nancy Pickard use of how we perceive what we want to see, make this book intriguing and give us much to think about. Her characters have depth and allow us to understand their actions even while we question their motives. This book should be well received and passed on from friend to friend. It would be a good book club read.
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