NINEMILE BENCH: a novel

Eleven miles past the barricade, one orchard is still green.Six weeks after the fire, Emmett Cade drives around a road-closed sign to reach his injured wife. He finds a family rationing spring water out of a concrete tank with a jam jar and a pencil line, and a place at their table, and a list with his name near the bottom of it.He stays to help. He is good with numbers, and there is a great deal here that does not add up.A wound five weeks open that does not hurt. A man at the end of the hall on the two hundred and thirty-first day of burns that should have killed him in August. Three dogs that will not climb the stairs. A hook on the outside of a door.Nobody in that house is lying to him. Nobody in that house is doing anything wrong. And the water tastes of ash and, under the ash, of pennies.Ninemile Bench is a novel about mercy, arithmetic, and the exact moment a man stops being able to leave.Use Look Inside to read the first chapter free - then decide whether you want to know what is behind that door.