Publication:
January
15, 2019
Publisher:
Minotaur
Books
Source:
Publisher
Synopsis:
Police officer Ellery Hathaway and FBI profiler Reed Markham
take on two difficult new cases in this stunning follow-up to The
Vanishing Season.
No
Mercy is
award-winning author Joanna Schaffhausen’s heart-pounding second novel.
Police
officer Ellery Hathaway is on involuntary leave from her job because she shot a
murderer in cold blood and refuses to apologize for it. Forced into group
therapy for victims of violent crime, Ellery immediately finds higher
priorities than “getting in touch with her feelings.”
For one,
she suspects a fellow group member may have helped to convict the wrong man for
a deadly arson incident years ago. For another, Ellery finds herself in the
desperate clutches of a woman who survived a brutal rape. He is still out
there, this man with the Spider-Man-like ability to climb through bedroom
windows, and his victim beseeches Ellery for help in capturing her attacker.
Ellery
seeks advice from her friend, FBI profiler Reed Markham, who liberated her from
a killer’s closet when she was a child. Reed remains drawn to this
unpredictable woman, the one he rescued but couldn’t quite save. The trouble
is, Reed is up for a potential big promotion, and his boss has just one
condition for the new job—stay away from Ellery. Ellery ignores all the
warnings. Instead, she starts digging around in everyone’s past but her own—a
move that, at best, could put her out of work permanently, and at worst, could
put her in the city morgue.
******
I enjoyed reading The Vanishing Season and was looking
forward to reading No Mercy when I
saw book two in this series was coming out. I was not disappointed. No Mercy leaves off months after the
events from The Vanishing Season.
Ellery finds herself in some hot water over killing a man…a man who was a dangerous
killer, but still. No matter the reason, she is required to do group therapy if
she wants to get her job back.
If talking about her past
won’t change the outcome, is there even a reason for her to go? Maybe there is
more to this mandated therapy then she first assumes. Especially when during
one of Ellery’s meetings, she becomes intrigued by the stories of a couple of
the attendees. It’s not long before she becomes entangled in not one, but two mysteries
surrounding two of those people.
I liked the pace of the
story. Nothing felt rushed or drawn out. Once again, I enjoyed getting to
uncover additional layers of Ellery’s character. Though she frustrated me more
than once when she continued to take matters into her own hands and act like
she was unstoppable. I can understand the need to help someone especially when
you feel like no one else is listening to the victim and justice needs to be
served, but Ellery continually put her well-being at risk when she should have just
let the cops handle it. Of course, if she had done that, there wouldn’t have
been much of a story for Ellery to involve herself in. I also liked the possibility
of a slow burning romance between Ellery and Reid that lingered just beneath
the surface of this story. Like the previous book, the mystery was not an
easily guessed one and I had fun attempting to figure out who the bad person
was.
RATING: 4 out of 5.
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