Review: Beg For Mercy

Title: Beg For Mercy
Genre: Romantic Suspense
Author: Jami Alden
Pub: June 1, 2011 by Forever

Megan Flynn thought she was falling in love. Cole Williams wasn't just handsome and passionate, he was one of the good guys. Or so she thought, until he arrested her brother - the only family she has left - for a murder she knows he couldn't have possibly committed. Now, with her heart broken and her brother's life hanging in the balance, Megan will risk everything to prove his innocence. Even if that means throwing herself into the path of a sadistic killer with a hauntingly familiar MO.

Seattle Detective Cole Williams had given up on making Megan see reason where her brother is concerned. But when she insinuates herself into the most shockingly brutal case Cole has ever worked, he can't stand idly by. Plunged into a secret world where the city's elite indulge their darkest desires, Cole will do whatever it takes to bring down a madman who has made Megan his most coveted prey.

Making the Grade: B+

For My Thoughts

Beg for Mercy is the book anyone who enjoys the suspense and spine-tingling story-telling a la Karen Rose or Laura Griffin. When I choose to read a RS - I want a couple of things. A suspenseful, plausible story to keep me guessing and a good conflict between the hero and heroine. I love to feel the romantic tension when the characters just love to hate one another. I like to see the journey the author takes them on from being on the outs to somehow overcoming their differences and getting it on.

One day everything seems perfect in Megan Flynn’s life. She’s getting all cozy with the new man in her life Seattle Detective Cole Williams and they‘re just about to do the horizontal mambo when Cole gets a phone call that turns Megan’s life on it’s ear and their fledgling relationship on its head.

Megan Flynn loves her older brother Sean without a doubt. When a young woman is found murdered in Sean’s home and he is sentenced to death row - from that point forward Megan spends every waking minute of every day trying to find proof that somehow, someway her brother did not commit the heinous crime he of which he’s been accused.

As the arresting officer, Cole Williams is a by the book, just the facts ma’am dedicated to his job detective. And all the facts point with a big, fat arrow straight at Sean Flynn as the murderer of a young woman he was supposedly stalking from a popular club.

Warning: Conflict ahead. Megan and Cole’s relationship flushes right down the toilet. From simmering hot to ice age cold in the blink of an eye. So much for happily ever after. As long as Sean’s in prison, Megan will never rest until she proves her brother’s innocence. And as long as Cole believes her brother is guilty they will never see eye to eye. Phewww how are they ever going to get past those roadblocks to happiness?

Fast forward three years and a new case of a woman brutally murdered brings Cole and Megan face to face just as the date of Sean’s execution is fast approaching.

Megan and Cole even three years later still had unresolved feeling for one another. Cole’s always felt guilty about how his relationship with Megan ended badly, but he was just doing his job. Now with this new rash of murdered women, Megan‘s persistence that the cases are somehow related to her brother‘s case and Cole‘s latent guilt, he reluctantly agrees to help her.

The villain in Beg for Mercy was particularly dark and the killing and torture scenes graphic and grizzly. This is not the type of book to read before bed unless you want a few nightmares. I didn’t know for sure who the killer was. Ms. Alden set the stage and offered up a few possible suspects and I liked that she keep me guessing.

The ending of Beg For Mercy was intense, suspenseful and edge of your seat reading.

Next up is Sean’s story in Hide From Evil. If I thought Cole and Megan had a conflict, well then I don’t think I’ve seen anything yet. Sean and his prosecuting attorney? He spent three years in jail because of her? Man how’s that gonna play out? Me? I can’t wait to find out!