THE COUNTERWEIGHT

a novel

On the last legal weekend before the line collapses, four people try to balance the same forty-eight hours — and the books will not close.

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A number is a kindness. A number tells you exactly how much to fear a thing, and fear you can plan around.

Four people. One sentence, said once into a phone in the back room of a Nashville honky-tonk on the last legal weekend of a gambling corridor about to be cracked open by a federal indictment.

A line-maker pricing his own disappearance. A prosecutor one name away from the case that makes her. A half-deaf courier who hears the half that fits his fear. A widow scrubbing a name off a lease that was never hers to give. Each of them takes a fragment of the same kindness and builds it into the disaster they needed it to be.

A literary thriller about prediction and mercy, about how far short kindness falls when it is handed across a room to people each holding a different half of an ear.

Comps

Contents

Four books, four points of view, one weekend. See the full contents →

  1. 01 The Half-Point Toward Mercy MERCER DABB
  2. 02 Closing Line Value MERCER DABB
  3. 03 A Tremor in the Line MERCER DABB
  4. 04 The Float Has Weight MERCER DABB
  5. 05 Daddy MERCER DABB
  6. 06 ...Heard Wrong MERCER DABB
  7. 07 Clean Exit MERCER DABB
  8. 08 The Charging Decision SANCHA REYES-OKAFOR
  9. 09 Queen for a Day SANCHA REYES-OKAFOR
  10. 10 The Name She Can Type or Not SANCHA REYES-OKAFOR
  11. 11 Hold the Wire SANCHA REYES-OKAFOR
  12. 12 The Truncation SANCHA REYES-OKAFOR
  13. 13 Sunday Morning, a Phone Still Lit SANCHA REYES-OKAFOR
  14. 14 The Half She'll Never Have SANCHA REYES-OKAFOR
  15. 15 Good Ear to the Door TULLY BOYD
  16. 16 A Man Already Running TULLY BOYD
  17. 17 The Long Way Down the Corridor TULLY BOYD
  18. 18 The Room with the Wall on His Left TULLY BOYD
  19. 19 The Approach TULLY BOYD
  20. 20 He Just Heard Wrong TULLY BOYD
  21. 21 The Deck, the Dark, the Mercy He Can't Hear TULLY BOYD
  22. 22 The Back Room, After REAGAN HALF
  23. 23 The Sound She Cleans Up REAGAN HALF
  24. 24 Dell in My Back Room REAGAN HALF
  25. 25 The Name That Won't Come Off REAGAN HALF
  26. 26 The Till and the Back-Room Money REAGAN HALF
  27. 27 His Side of the Bed REAGAN HALF
  28. 28 Before Any of It REAGAN HALF
  29. 29 You Will Not Remember Which Version Was True REAGAN HALF
  30. 30 The OPEN Sign Over an Empty Room REAGAN HALF

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