A community devoured by greed, cowardice and fear. A man persecuted by the ghosts of his painful past. A young woman searching for happiness. In one eventful week, each of them will face questions of life, death and power, and each of them will have to choose their own path. Will they choose good or evil.

The remote village of Viscos is the setting for this extraordinary struggle. A stranger arrives, carrying with him a backpack containing a notebook and 11 gold bars. He comes searching for the answer to a question that torments him: are human beings, in essence, good or evil? In welcoming the mysterious foreigner, the whole village becomes an accomplice to his sophisticated plot, which will forever mark their lives.

This book is the third in a trilogy where Coelho investigates different points of humanity...love, faith...and in this book, greed...evil vs. good. I expected good to win in this book, as from previous novels I''ve read of his, I''ve noticed his faith in humanity. In the end, I was uncomfortable with the decision made by the townspeople, though it''s definitely a true possibility of what would happen in this situation. As I believe in the best in people, I would have liked to have seen the town tell the stranger to kiss off, but that''s just me. :) I really liked Berta and her history.

Picked up at August 2008 BCie Dublin meetup

RELEASE NOTES:

Will be posting this out to fellow bookmoocher Marilyn today. Enjoy!

received via book mooch. added to huge mountain of books to be read