Review: No Mercy by John Burley

Blurb: When a brutally murdered teenager is discovered in the woods surrounding a small Ohio town, Dr. Ben Stevenson—the town’s medical examiner—must decide if he’s willing to put his family’s life in danger to uncover the truth. Finding himself pulled deeper into an investigation with devastating consequences, he discovers shocking information that will shatter his quiet community, and force him to confront a haunting truth.

 *******************

My Rating: 1 star out of 5

Review: This novel left a lot to be desired, even though the concept held definite promise. To begin with, in the first chapter, the Ben is thinking about going to see his son's baseball game, he even goes so far as to talk about how his arm was so good he had been promoted to pitcher. The whole thing is brought on by the fact that traffic is backed up and he hopes he'll even make it on time to see his son play. A few sentences later, and that baseball game has suddenly become a wrestling match, before going back to a baseball game.. only this time Ben is at home telling his wife not to worry about the safety of their son because he was going to be at an "away" baseball game. All of the sudden, it seemed that Ben (the Father) never had an intention of attending his son's game, even though that was one of the first things on his mind. This kind of oversight in editing usually does not bode well for the rest of the book, and I almost quit reading then and there.

On the plus side, these were the only errors of this type that I came across while reading this novel. 

On the other-side? There was a lot left to be desired. 

To begin with, there was a lot of medical jargon. Which, yes I get that the main character worked for the coroner's office and therefore would know all of the proper terms, however, I found it very annoying to have to repeatedly use the dictionary feature on my kindle to determine what a particular word meant. I wish the author would have found a way to both keep the "proper medical terminology" as well as a "layman's term" so that those of us without a lot of medical training would be able to understand the extent of some of the injuries. 

Then, the plot of the story was (to me) completely unrealistic. I don't want to say too much and give too much of the story away, however, I will say that it seemed as though the author really didn't have a set "killer" in mind when the story was written, so they had to think quick and alter the story to have someone be guilty. And even when that happened, there was no justice, no real ending or closure for the reader. 

Overall, it was a definite disappointment considering all of the rave reviews and the promise of the blurb. 

DISCLAIMER: I received a copy of this novel in exchange for my honest review. This has NOT altered or changed my review in any way. All thoughts expressed in this review are 100% my own.