Mightier Than The Sword

"Mightier Than the Sword."

Ben Ridgeway's a wealthy Hawaiian rancher receives a mysterious letter from neighbor, Leroy Pierrera. Pierrera and Ridgeway have been at odds in a legal squabble about a small parcel of land. Ridgeway won a judgment in court. The sentiments within the letter are revealing.
Ridgeway decides to forego his judgment. At the same time, Ridgeway realizes Leroy lacks capacity to pen such a poignant letter, yet there's no doubt the letter stems from Leroy.
His curiosity has him mending fences. Ridgeway invites Leroy to his Christmas party. Leroy shows and becomes obnoxiously drunk. Ridgeway whisks Leroy into his office, curious about the letter. Leroy confesses he did not write the letter but hired a ghostwriter, a drifter named Warren Dearden.
Ben has conflict in his personal life, one of a sensitive nature. He’s in need of someone to speak for him. Thus begins a search for the mystery letter writer.
The letter writer, Warren Dearden, hitch-hikes from place to place. He’s self sufficient. His letters fulfill other peoples’ requests, their wants, needs and desires. He employs for himself a cottage-industry system. His travels have taken him all over the country.
Seems his ability to listen mesmerizes people. They bleed their souls. First Warren comprehends their woes and then communicates their aspirations after he has agreed to write them a letter.
His services are mostly paid for in cash, but he has been known to barter. A motel owner or restaurateur may have urgent letters that need writing. There’s always room and board. Warren is a specialist at writing to debtors; mortgage lenders, the IRS and local jury-duty administrators yet his specialty is to settle personal conflicts. Letters vary.
There's the hooker who inadvertently had sex with her brother-in-law through no fault of her own. The Vietnam vet who wants to explain terrible circumstances that have saddled him with guilt and have sentenced him to be ostracized. There’s a disinherited socialite who feels he's paid a heavy price and wishes to make amends to his high-falutin relatives. And a dying man who wants one letter penned to his long-ago, passed-away mother.
Before the letter to Ridgeway, back in Massachusetts, Warren wrote a letter for a Hawaiian girl, to her father on Maui, explaining how she would not be returning to Hawaii after she promised to do so. She has no money and Warren accepts a one-way fare as payment. Shortly thereafter, Warren sets up shop in the Islands.
On Maui, Warren’s first client was Leroy Pierrera. Throughout the trial, Pierrera, shielded personal reasons why he chose to encroach the small plot. When defeated in the courts, Pierrera, felt handcuffed by the white man's system. By chance he discovers Warren's unique service, sensing such, as a last-ditch effort to reverse the tide.
Within the first chapter the reader is privy to a portion of the ghost-written letter to Ridgeway. Warren sets iron-clad terms. He pens the request, is free to use his own words, just as long as they’re the true sentiments belonging to his clients. The senders, such as Leroy, have no editorial rights. Same as the letters targets, the sender receives their copy around the same time.
Sentiments brought out by the letter to Ben ignited his curiosity, thus Ben planned to pry from Leroy the identity of the real letter writer.
Mightier Than the Sword is a fascinating story about a tortured man who sheds material and physical wants and desires to become spiritual. He has an uncanny knack, a laser like connection with clarity and possesses common sense. By placing sudden-impact words in the proper chronological order, his prose sway pragmatic decisions in favor of his clients, doing such without being antagonistic. For complete strangers he can achieve wonders. Yet he cannot manifest his own wants.