Mercy
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4.3 • 6 Ratings
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- £0.99
Publisher Description
It's hard to sit still when your client is scheduled to die in 15 hours….
As he makes an 11th hour plea for mercy, lawyer Alex Sedaka is resigned to the fact that Clayton Burrows will be executed. Charged with the rape and murder of 18-year-old classmate Dorothy Olsen – a girl he mercilessly bullied and victimised at school – the case seems cut and dry.
But then the victim's mother makes an astonishing offer – clemency in return for the whereabouts of her daughter's body before she herself dies of the terminal disease ravaging her body.
On the other side of the Atlantic, a nurse watching Fox News recognises Dorothy's name. Does she hold the key to this case?
Alex must now convince Clayton to come clean – but he still protests his innocence Is this another one of Clayton's games to or is he an innocent man about to be condemned to death?
Prepare to be up all night with this race-against-the clock thriller for fans of Jeff Abbot, Simon Kernick and 24.
Reviews
‘This will keep you on the edge of your seat until the very end.’ Closer
About the author
David Kessler dropped out of school at the age of 15 and was self-educated from then on. He struggled for 25 years to become a published author before finally making his breakthrough with A Fool for a Client, a legal thriller set in New York. This was followed up by The Other Victim, Tarnished Heroes and Reckless Justice. He also courted controversy by co-writing Who Really Killed Rachel (about the Wimbledon Common murder) with Colin Stagg, the man who was falsely accused of the crime. The book is now out of print, but since then, the real murderer – who was named in the book – has been convicted of the crime.
Customer Reviews
More twists and turns than a corkscrew
This is a race-against-time Death Row thriller that leaves the reader breathless. As the title of this review suggests, it has more twists than a corkscrew and they keep coming right until the end. Paradoxically I did spot one big twist. But there were so many others, that it was almost as if that twist was the lightening rod for my attention, causing me to miss the other more subtle twists until the author chose to reveal them.
I am reluctant to reveal too many details as that would spoil it. All I will say is that it involves a missing body, a dysfunctional family, body parts and a very tenacious lawyer who will not give up. The author throws in DNA, computer hacking and the ins and outs of criminal law, making sure to use these as tools to build the story, not bludgeons to overwhelm it.
To get the most out of this book, you have to read it very carefully, because nothing is what it seems and there is even a surprise in the last line. This book is in the same tradition of death penalty thrillers as Andrew Klavan's True Crime: It is also reminiscent of Grisham's "The Confession" but somewhat less preachy. That is, it forces the reader to think about the moral issues surrounding capital punishment, but doesn't take a stand on the issue or attempt to impose a particular view on the reader. In this respect it is a good thriller with that something extra. It is the first in the Alex Sedaka series that conitnued with No Way Out.