A Life Intercepted by Charles Martin is one of his older novels.
Matthew "the Rocket" Rising has an incredible arm and is a two-time Heisman Trophy winner on his way to what appears to be an amazing professional football career. He and the love of his life are planning to be married and at the moment in their lives when everything is golden, the horrific happens and Matthew heads to jail for perverse crimes he swears he never committed.
While first governed by deep hatred and raging anger after entering prison, he slowly learns that those qualities are doing him no good and have done nothing to help him deal with his innocence. He knows the evidence portrayed an extremely hard to deny case against him, but he has no recall of what he's accused of and complete and stark surprise at the circumstances in which he woke up on that fateful morning.
Twelve years later, he is released after making a real friend while incarcerated of one of the prison guards who broke through his resistance and got him throwing the football and working out again. He's the only one Matthew will miss when he leaves.
On Wednesday's post I wrote about how special and unique it is when a writer creates true brokenness in a character or characters. Charles Martin excels at writing "broken." The devastating loss that Matthew Rising has experienced, the utter desolation that his fiancée lives with . . . well, suffice it to say, it's real pain written well.
Charles is good at making the reader favor Matthew's version of his claims, gaining the sympathy of the reader and injecting a character early who seems totally capable of somehow framing him for the crimes. While some would share his fiancée's doubts, I probably would not so she became a bit unsympathetic to me. What she needed from Matthew was one thing only he could do, and because of his forever love for her, he agrees to do it.
The ending is exactly how it should be. You just can't take a reader through that incredible, lifeless, excruciating kind of pain detailed in this story only to leave them with that. It's a worthy conclusion to a special novel.
Always highly recommend Charles Martin for gut-wrenching, powerful, and meaningful stories.
Father, only you know our hearts, minds, spirits. Only you minister truth to us. Thank you for the beautiful gift of writing you've given to Charles through his own pain. Please continue to bless him and his family in your abundance. In the Name of Jesus, Amen.