Happy Reading

Toni's bookshelf: read

The Godfather of Kathmandu (Sonchai Jitpleecheep, #4)
Ape House
The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest
Operation Napoleon
Walking Dead
The Sentimentalists
The Heretic Queen
The Midnight House
Cross Fire
Peony in Love
Absurdistan
Nefertiti
Finding Nouf: A Novel
City of Veils: A Novel
First Daughter
A Place of Hiding
Amagansett
Peter Pan


Toni Osborne's favorite books »
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Saturday, November 6, 2010

"Mercy Street", by Mariah Stewart


Book 1 in the Mercy Street Foundation series

This romantic suspense novel is a refreshing interlude, a relief for those who have been reading more adrenaline based mysteries, Mariah Stewart style is lower keyed . This mystery is basic and not complicated to follow, it focuses mainly on homicides and missing person investigations and provides interesting moments that will grab you immediately, unfortunately it is somewhat predictable.

The novel juggles three threads at the same time and intertwines smoothly:

1) The center of the mystery is Robert Magellan's missing family and the fact that he is haunted by the memory and relives the terrible day when Beth his wife and their baby son simply disappeared, never to be found.

2) On another tangent, investigators are left baffled when a simple outing to a local park turns tragic, two children are missing and two have had their young lives cut short. After weeks into the investigation, the only theory they have is, one of the missing kids is the possible shooter. The child's grandmother unable to accept what is happening turns to Father Kevin Burch. With the help and sympathy of philanthropist Robert Magellan they hire P.I. Mallory Russo to look into the matter.

3) It turns out the Conroy police force is already busy, they have a sniper on the hunt. The events present an seemingly insurmountable challenge to a small police force.

P.I. Mallory Russo has a stroke of luck when she meets Charlie Wanamaker, a man with a dysfunctional family, who happens to be in transition from one police force to the Conroy force. They quickly bound and with their passion for justice they race to solve the mysteries. The chemistry they develop between themselves eventually reaches beyond their professionalism...

The characters are quite likeable and easy to root for, a blooming romance between Mallory and Charlie is surely to be followed up in the next instalment, at least I expect it to be with the conclusion to what happened to Robert Magellan's family. The story was captivating but in time will not be one of my most memorable novels

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