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.
Books by this author reviewed by Mysterious Reviews ...
Final
Truth
Ballantine (Hardcover), May 2006
ISBN-10: 0-345-48383-9 (0345483839)
ISBN-13: 978-0-345-48383-6 (9780345483836)
Last
Breath
Ballantine (Hardcover), July2007
ISBN-10: 0-345-49224-2 (0345492242)
ISBN-13: 978-0-345-49224-1 (9780345492241)
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.