Mercy Street
A Mercy
Street Foundation Mystery
Mariah
Stewart
Ballantine (Hardcover)
ISBN-10: 0-345-49226-9 (0345492269)
ISBN-13: 978-0-345-49226-5 (9780345492265)
Publication Date: May 2008
List Price: $22.00
Synopsis (from
the publisher): On a balmy spring evening, four high school
seniors–three boys and a girl–enter a park in the small
Pennsylvania city of Conroy. The next morning, two of the boys are
found shot to death, and the girl and the third boy are gone. After
three weeks with no leads and no sign of either of the two missing
teenagers, the chief of police begins to wonder if they too were
victims. But with no other suspects, the authorities conclude that one
of these kids was the shooter.
The missing boy’s grandmother, a secretary at the local parish
church, maintains his innocence. On her behalf, the parish priest,
Father Kevin Burch, hires former detective Mallory Russo as a private
investigator to figure out what happened in the park that night.
Mallory had ended her nine-year stint with the Conroy police force some
time ago after becoming a target of a smear campaign. Now a true-crime
author, Mallory is surprised to receive the priest’s
offer–and highly intrigued by the case. She can’t help but
accept the challenge–especially when she learns that her
investigation will be financed by Father Burch’s cousin the
reclusive billionaire Robert Magellan, a man whose own wife and infant
son disappeared without a trace a year ago, a man who understands the
heartache of not knowing what happened to a loved one.
Detective Charlie Wanamaker is facing another sort of tragedy. He fled
Conroy years ago with no plans to return to what he considered a dying
factory town–until a family emergency brought him back. Finding
the situation much worse than he’d thought, he trades his job as
a big-city detective for one with the Conroy police department.
Assigned to the park shooting case, Charlie quickly realizes that the
initial investigation left a lot of questions unanswered. Unofficially,
he teams up with Mallory to uncover the truth and find the two kids,
dead or alive. What Charlie and Mallory discover will take them down a
twisted path that leads to an old unsolved murder–and justice for
a killer with a heart of stone.
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 and to Authors on the Web for providing a copy of the book for this review.
Review Copyright © 2008 — Hidden Staircase Mystery Books — All Rights Reserved
Have you read Mercy Street? How would you rate it?
Mysteries in this series ...
Mercy Street
Ballantine (Hardcover), May 2008
ISBN-10: 0-345-49226-9 (0345492269)
ISBN-13: 978-0-345-49226-5 (9780345492265)
Omnimystery keywords for Mercy Street ...
Location(s) referenced: Pennsylvania.
