Wiley Cash

This book is the Winner Of The 2014 Crime Novel Of The Year Award. "Exciting and suspenseful, as well as moving, with a captivating heroine, this is a tremendous book." (Guardian). Wade is a loser. A broke waste of space. A father who gave up on his daughters three years ago. Wade is also a thief. Like the day he climbs through the window, steals his girls back and takes them away in his car. He doesn't want to hurt them. All he wants is to make up for lost time: another shot at being a dad. But Wade can't escape his mistakes. And now a man is on their trail - a man who wants Wade dead. Down the wide, open roads of North Carolina, with summer falling behind them, Wade must protect his children and outrun a terrifying past that is always one step ahead...

Inspired by actual events, The Last Ballad is a moving tale of courage in the face of oppression, with all the emotional power of Cold Mountain and The Secret Scripture 'A powerful book that speaks to contemporary concerns through historical injustice. Cash vividly blends the archival with the imaginative.' New York Times Book Review For twenty-eight-year-old Ella May Wiggins life is tough. Her no-good husband, John, has run off again, and she must keep her four young children alive with the only work she can find, the night shift at American Mill No. 2 in Bessemer City, North Carolina When union leaflets begin circulating, Ella May has a taste of hope, a yearning for the better life the organizers promise. But the mill owners, backed by other nefarious forces, claim the union is nothing but a front for the Bolshevik menace sweeping across Europe. To maintain their control, the owners will use every means in their power, including bloodshed, to prevent workers from banding together. Seventy-five years later, Ella May's daughter Lilly, now an elderly woman, tells her nephew about his grandmother and the events that transformed their family forever. Paying tribute to the thousands of heroic women and men who risked their lives to win basic rights for all workers, The Last Ballad is lyrical, heartbreaking and haunting, and the novel which confirms Wiley Cash's place among America's finest writers.