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Mercy Street

A Mercy Street Foundation Mystery by Mariah Stewart

Mercy Street by Mariah Stewart

Review: Mariah Stewart initiates a new series of thrillers with Mercy Street, a gripping novel set in Conroy, a small Pennsylvania town shattered by the murders of two high school senior boys and the disappearance of two others, a boy and girl who were classmates of the dead young men.

Friends since kindergarten, the four teenagers often went off together. The morning after they last met, two of the boys were found dead from gunshot wounds, the others missing. After three weeks, the police conclude that the killers either abducted the boy and girl, or the two killed their friends and went into hiding. Mary Corcoran refuses to believe her grandson, Ryan, killed his friends. She also believes he and the girl, Courtney, are still alive somewhere. With the help of Father Kevin Burch, Mallory Russo, an ex-cop, is persuaded to begin an investigation. Since Mallory Russo is no longer a detective on the dwindling police force and she has no license to act as a private investigator, she enlists the aid of her former captain, a good friend and mentor, to help her get information necessary to her investigation. The captain unofficially assigns Detective Charlie Wannamaker, new to the Conroy force, to aid her. The probing of this shocking incident takes Mallory and Charlie into the school to talk with other students and teachers, and into the homes of despondent parents. They also go to the dark side of the dying factory town for information concerning suspects they believe the police overlooked or didn't even question. In their quest for the truth, they don't realize they are placing their lives in grave danger.

As riveting as the murder investigation is in Mercy Street, Stewart develops several equally interesting subplots involving the characters. Robert Magellan, a wealthy man whose wife and child disappeared a year ago after attending her sister's baby shower, has agreed to finance Mallory's investigation. And Charlie Wannamaker, an experienced detective who recently left the Philadelphia police force, has returned home to Conroy to care for his alcoholic mother and autistic sister. Both stories add depth and complexity to an already first-rate murder mystery.

Mercy Street is an outstanding start to this series, the next book of which is eagerly awaited.

Special thanks to guest reviewer Betty of The Betz Review for contributing her review of Mercy Street.

Acknowledgment: Authors on the Web provided a copy of Mercy Street for this review.

Review Copyright © 2008 — Hidden Staircase Mystery Books — All Rights Reserved

Selected reviews of other mysteries by this author …

Mystery Book Review: Last Breath by Mariah StewartLast Breath
Ballantine (Hardcover), July 2007
ISBN-13: 9780345492241; ISBN-10: 0345492242

Location(s) referenced in Mercy Street: Pennsylvania

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Mercy Street by Mariah Stewart

Mercy Street by A Mercy Street Foundation Mystery

Publisher: Ballantine
Format: Hardcover
ISBN-13: 978-0-345-49226-5
Publication Date:
List Price: $22.00

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