A Merciful Death by Kendra Elliot

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Category: Adult
Genre: Mystery
Content: Strong language, Kidnapping, Rape that is repeatedly done off page and is not described


FBI special agent Mercy Kilpatrick has been waiting her whole life for disaster to strike. A prepper since childhood, Mercy grew up living off the land—and off the grid—in rural Eagle’s Nest, Oregon. Until a shocking tragedy tore her family apart and forced her to leave home. Now a predator known as the cave man is targeting the survivalists in her hometown, murdering them in their homes, stealing huge numbers of weapons, and creating federal suspicion of a possible domestic terrorism event. But the crime scene details are eerily familiar to an unsolved mystery from Mercy’s past.

Sent by the FBI to assist local law enforcement, Mercy returns to Eagle’s Nest to face the family who shunned her while maintaining the facade of a law-abiding citizen. There, she meets police chief Truman Daly, whose uncle was the cave man’s latest victim. He sees the survivalist side of her that she desperately tries to hide, but if she lets him get close enough to learn her secret, she might not survive the fallout…

I went into this having only read one other book by this author, Hidden, and I liked it better than this one. This was the authors first published series and I think she improved a bit with her later book. This book was set in the Northwest in a community of preppers. I don't know a lot about preppers. I've always kind of just thought prepping was a solitary activity. I didn't realize there could be whole cult-like communities of these people. There are according to this book anyway, which is a work of fiction, so I don't know how accurate the description of this town and people really is. I did find their behavior a bit disturbing. I'm all for being prepared with some extras, but the level of prepping these people do, and the mentality that the world could fall apart at any time is not a way I would want to live my life. What I'm trying to say is that being prepared with emergency supplies is smart, but living and breathing the possibility of a disaster or a government takeover every day of my life, is a level of paranoid I can't get behind.

So back to the book...while I liked this ok, I thought the prepper aspect of the story overshadowed the mystery a bit. The mystery itself was rather dull, especially considering it involved a serial killer, and I thought the reason behind the murders was a let down. I also wasn't that crazy about the main character. She grew on me a little as I read, but she was kind of forgettable. She also kept a secret that was really overblown. Being an FBI agent she would have known that this secret she was keeping was rather silly, and things wouldn't end up the way she thought they would. This was probably the most annoying thing about her.

I liked the main character's blind sister, and the love interest as well. He was probably my favorite character in the book. I liked that their romance developed slowly and didn't feel like insta-love, but I didn't exactly get his attraction to her either. Overall, I was a little disappointed in this one.