When Oliver Bonds, a revered religious studies professor at the University of Texas, loses his toddler son and undergoes intense legal scrutiny over his involvement, grief engulfs him completely. His life is upended; Oliver loses his wife, home, and faith. Three years after his son's death, Oliver lives in a shack...
Mark never heard the Mauser shot for the bullet came ahead of the sound. There was only the massive shock in the upper part of his body, and then he was hurled backwards with a violence that drove the air from his lungs.The earth opened before him, and as he fell, there was a sensation of being engulfed in a swirling vortex of blackness and he knew for just a fleeting instant of time that he was dead'