Mack Mangham, a local writer who hails originally from the Florida Panhandle, is a writer who does dare mighty things, who does win glorious triumphs even though checkered by failure.

In his previous three novels, Mangham has written a thriller (The Accidental Agent), a lovely novel about the mountains that was an early contender for the Pulitzer (Shadow Of The Hawk), and a wild Gothic tale of ruin and death (Alice Allison’s Crazy Dog Song). Each book revealed a writer who was not afraid of big ideas, who dared to take risks in the way he presented characters and situations.

Mangham continues to regard writing and literature as high adventure in his latest novel, Things Left Undone. Here fate brings together four men from four very different backgrounds and four different parts of the United States. Each of these men has lost a loved one or barely escaped death. Meeting one another in a mountain town in Western North Carolina, the four men become friends and begin to conquer the ghosts from their past and their fears of the future.

As the four men — Ramsey Wade, Cabel Rush, Austin Falconer, and Bateman Fisher — become acquainted with one another, the reader begins to be privy to their secrets. We come to understand how the trials and trauma of the past plays upon the present and may sometimes dictate the future.

Others in the mountain village have secrets as well — murder, drugs, and sex — that come under public scrutiny as the story proceeds. Cipher, for example, is a powerfully built man with the mind of a six year old and a secret regarding murder that endangers both his life and the lives of several of those around him. Briannah Mikelah, who lives in poverty and sometimes inhabits a cave, is not at all what she seems.

Mangham’s writing remains as powerfully descriptive as it was in Shadow Of The Hawk. As he tells us of two men fishing he sums up exactly what being on a river or stream means to many fishermen:

“Trout fishing is a solitary sport at its best. At its worst it is a shared appreciation of nature. Not many enjoy companionship on The Tuck; The Tuck itself is company enough. The best fishing day is a love affair between a man and the river.”

Unlike many modern writers, Mangham also delights in aphorisms and adages, and is not shy about sharing them with his readers. “Life is what happens, not what we want to happen,” “Present pain is always less comfortable than remembered pain,” and “Cause and effect are the energy of a simple life; happenstance is the pebbles on the road along the way” are only a few of these maxims, all of which make the reader feel as if the author were actually talking directly to him.

Where Things Left Undone might be faulted is in its depiction of the four men who become friends. Although the men are from different backgrounds and places, they often seemed so much alike that it seemed easy to confuse them. Even their unusual first names — Ramsey, Cabel, Austin, and Bateman — in some sense made the men more alike than different. Readers may have to work, especially in the beginning of the book, to visualize each man.

Mangham’s next book, Who Will Tie Your Shoes? is due for publication in December.

(Jeff Minick lives in Waynesville. He can be reached at saintsbookco@aol.com)