RogerBW's Blog

A Merciful Fate, Kendra Elliot 25 April 2022

2019 romantic mystery, fifth in the Mercy Kilpatrick series. A body found in the woods could be connected with an armoured car robbery thirty years ago. FBI agent Kilpatrick and her police chief fiancé Truman Daly, among others, investigate.

Well, I guess my American police instincts are working: one particular character struck me as "hinky" on first appearance, and indeed turned out to be the villain. Otherwise, it's largely the recipe as before: it's a good recipe, and if it doesn't produce masterpieces it does at least allow for enjoyable mystery stories.

We have crooks from back in the day (who turn out to have been remarkably good at getting new identities), with the main weak spot being the robber who got caught who loves to manipulate everyone; he's something of a stock character, and large bits about his plot are just left hanging.

There's quite a bit going on with the secondary cast too, with relationship angst and pregnancy and so on; it verges on the soap-operatic at times, but manages to keep things interesting. I'm less impressed by some of the authorial manipulation, such as the suggestion that Mercy doesn't mind slacking off on her prepper lifestyle now that she's engaged to be married and maybe that's what she was looking for all along; and at the same time she has to be reconciled with her thoroughly anti-government father because there's only one book left and you Must Be Friendly With Your Family.

But allow that, and allow the series' general attitude that cops are always right, and remember that American maps of rural areas really are practically non-existent, and what's left is still pretty decent,

[Buy this at Amazon] and help support the blog. ["As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases."]

Previous in series: A Merciful Silence | Series: Mercy Kilpatrick | Next in series: A Merciful Promise

Comments on this post are now closed. If you have particular grounds for adding a late comment, comment on a more recent post quoting the URL of this one.

Search
Archive
Tags 1920s 1930s 1940s 1950s 1960s 1970s 1980s 1990s 2000s 2010s 3d printing action advent of code aeronautics aikakirja anecdote animation anime army astronomy audio audio tech aviation base commerce battletech beer boardgaming book of the week bookmonth chain of command children chris chronicle church of no redeeming virtues cold war comedy computing contemporary cornish smuggler cosmic encounter coup covid-19 crime cthulhu eternal cycling dead of winter doctor who documentary drama driving drone ecchi economics en garde espionage essen 2015 essen 2016 essen 2017 essen 2018 essen 2019 essen 2022 essen 2023 existential risk falklands war fandom fanfic fantasy feminism film firefly first world war flash point flight simulation food garmin drive gazebo genesys geocaching geodata gin gkp gurps gurps 101 gus harpoon historical history horror hugo 2014 hugo 2015 hugo 2016 hugo 2017 hugo 2018 hugo 2019 hugo 2020 hugo 2022 hugo-nebula reread in brief avoid instrumented life javascript julian simpson julie enfield kickstarter kotlin learn to play leaving earth linux liquor lovecraftiana lua mecha men with beards mpd museum music mystery naval noir non-fiction one for the brow opera parody paul temple perl perl weekly challenge photography podcast politics postscript powers prediction privacy project woolsack pyracantha python quantum rail raku ranting raspberry pi reading reading boardgames social real life restaurant reviews romance rpg a day rpgs ruby rust scala science fiction scythe second world war security shipwreck simutrans smartphone south atlantic war squaddies stationery steampunk stuarts suburbia superheroes suspense television the resistance the weekly challenge thirsty meeples thriller tin soldier torg toys trailers travel type 26 type 31 type 45 vietnam war war wargaming weather wives and sweethearts writing about writing x-wing young adult
Special All book reviews, All film reviews
Produced by aikakirja v0.1