Road to Nowhere

by Paul Robertson

Overview

For years, Wardsville sat nestled in the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina, a peaceful small town. The kind of place where neighbors care for each other. But that's until unexpected funding arrives to build a road into town.

With millions to be gained in land and development deals--and millions to be lost for those in the road's way--everyone has something at stake. Suddenly, this quiet town is torn in two as neighbor turns on neighbor. The fate of the project and the future of the town rest on the decision by the county board, but when someone may have gone as far as cold-blooded murder, is anyone safe?

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781441207869
Publisher:	Baker Publishing Group
Publication date:	03/01/2009
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	352
File size:	856 KB

About the Author

Paul Robertson is a computer programming consultant and part-time high school math and science teacher. He is also a former Christian bookstore owner (for 15 years) who lives with his family in Blacksburg, Virginia.
Paul Robertson is a computer programming consultant, part-time high-school math and science teacher, and the author of The Heir. He is also a former Christian bookstore owner (for 15 years), who lives with his family in Blacksburg, Virginia.

Editorial Reviews

Paul Robertson starts his small town tale by slowly and quietly introducing the reader to it main players, and as you come to know and care about these folks, you start to sense something bad is happening within the community. As is common, I think, with many small towns, what is seen on the surface is not what the place is truly about. The steady forward pace is just right for you to get to really know each character, and some of their enjoyable ideosyncrasies. Mr. Robertson's descriptions and dialogue speak with authority... he knows small towns and regular folk. He builds his characters to the point where I truly cared about how the tale would end.
—Jae Anderson

1340MagBooks.com

In his savvy sophomore suspense novel, former indie bookseller Robertson (The Heir) uses multiple points of view to set up a seemingly innocuous story line-the proposal to build a road-that will keep readers glued. Octogenarian Joe Esterhouse has served enough decades on the Jefferson County, NC., Board to smell a rat, and something disturbs him about a proposal to bring Gold River Highway over the mountain into tiny Wardsville. Board members are dying and nothing is what it seems on the surface. Self-interest threatens to override the common good, and what is truth and what is perceived to be truth become nebulous. Robertson creates some of the most engaging characters and relationships encountered in faith fiction: Joe is a genuine sage, and other characters are no less captivating. Although the rapid-fire point of view changes are reminiscent of a novice stick-shift driver (and threaten whiplashlike confusion early on), once readers get the rhythm they will be compelled along. This top-notch offering features genuine humor, clever writing, a surprise ending and a strong portrayal of evil's power that doesn't succumb to clichéd violence. It deserves a wide audience. (Apr.)

Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Publishers Weekly

Paul Robertson's second novel, Road to Nowhere, is, get this, about a road. Yes, you read that right. And yes, it is a novel and not a commentary on pork barrel politics, though politics get fair play in the storyline. Not only that, it's a novel about a road--and murder, suspense, and intrigue--that is at turns funny, engaging, and thoroughly engrossing. It's a novel about a road that I could not put down until I had completely devoured it!
... I read Robertson's first novel, The Heir, last year ... and enjoyed his clever writing and smart wit so I was excited about reading this his second novel. Road to Nowhere did not disappoint.

5MinutesforBooks.com

City councilman Joe Esterhouse unwittingly brings chaos and murder to his small North Carolina town when he proposes completing a long-awaited highway project. A second thriller from the author of The Heir.

—Tamara Butler

Library Journal

Paul Robertson has written an oddly absorbing novel about the local politics of road construction in a rural Carolina county. The story focuses on the six members of the Jefferson County Board of Supervisors, all essentially good people who are caught up in a whirlwind of self-interest and genuine evil. Narrator Henry Strozier does an excellent job of bringing each character to life. He has an actor's skill in capturing accents and all manner of vocal nuances without slipping into caricature. He preserves the dignity of his characters even as their follies are revealed. Although murders take place as the road controversy goes on, the story is primarily a novel of a people and a place and the democratic process. D.L.G. © AudioFile 2009, Portland, Maine

AUGUST 2009 - AudioFile