Rick Conner

At the Corner of Mercy and Grace Rick Conner

Harold Langley, a highly decorated Marine, returns from Vietnam with the war still raging inside his mind. The flashbacks, nightmares and battle scenes become a daily ritual that he fights and attempts to control. Early one morning, he crossed over the line between Vietnam and insanity, declaring war on society. The thrill of combat returned as he methodically stuffed a pistol, tape, and knife in to a bag and walked out the door to establish his new identity: starker, robber, and abductor. He returns to his wife and children and resumes a normal life with little memory of his crimes. By day, he portrays a polished Marine, respected, honored, and admired by the Corps with rows of combat medals, but by night he is transformed into a renegade, dousing his body with drugs and alcohol to deal with the memories. He stands in his office and discusses headlines of his crimes with friends with distaste for the coward who would do such a thing. They have no idea that the predator they're reading about in the newspaper is standing in their midst. The war suddenly ends when the God of Mercy and Grace intervenes with a surprising twist of events that launch him into a new war for his soul and his eternal destiny.