Book Review: At the End of the Road by Grant Jerkins

At the End of the Road
Author: Grant Jerkins
Reading Level: Adult
Genre: Mystery/Thriller
Released: November 1st 2011
Review Source: Berkley Prime Crime
Available: Amazon

Summary: (from goodreads) From the critically acclaimed author of A Very Simple Crime, a chilling story of a young boy coming to grips with genuine evil. A red dirt road on a sweltering day. A car loses control, flips through the air. A woman crawls out, bloody and battered, staggers toward the boy on the bike, the one she swerved to avoid. But he runs away...
Kyle is ten in the summer of 1976, and his world is all about secrets-secrets hidden in the maze of cornfields, in caves, in the embers of scorched earth, behind creaking doors and down basement stairs...and in the darkest of hearts.
But there's a policewoman at the front door. The Paralyzed Man watches him from a neighboring porch. And no matter which way Kyle turns, no place seems safe anymore...

I struggled through this book. I didn't like it from the beginning and I skipped some parts because they were too hard to read. It is kind of a mystery/thriller/crime drama.

I liked the mystery and crime solving part of this storyline, but it was very graphic and violent in parts. Violence to children and women, some pretty graphic imagery, abusive situations--that kind of stuff is really difficult to read. The storyline was hard to follow at times because it was kind of a flashback type of book where Kyle was looking back on the summer that changed his, and everyone else in his family's lives. There were other point of views that the author wrote from, too, and it just made it more confusing for me and hard to follow.

Maybe I didn't like it so much because it wasn't one of those warm, fuzzy books with a Happily Ever After ending. If you are intrigued by mystery, crime or thrillers, this book may be up your alley though.