Review: No Mercy by Joanna Schaffhausen

Title: No Mercy (Ellery Hathaway #2)
Author: Joanna Schaffhausen
Pages: 320
Genre: Thriller
Source: Free ARC from Minotaur

Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Note: As stated under the Source (above), I received this book for free from Minotaur via NetGalley. I pride myself on writing fair and honest reviews.

Goodreads Summary: “Police officer Ellery Hathaway and FBI profiler Reed Markham take on two difficult new cases in this stunning follow-up to The Vanishing Season.

No Mercy is award-winning author Joanna Schaffhausen’s heart-pounding second novel.

Police officer Ellery Hathaway is on involuntary leave from her job because she shot a murderer in cold blood and refuses to apologize for it. Forced into group therapy for victims of violent crime, Ellery immediately finds higher priorities than “getting in touch with her feelings.”

For one, she suspects a fellow group member may have helped to convict the wrong man for a deadly arson incident years ago. For another, Ellery finds herself in the desperate clutches of a woman who survived a brutal rape. He is still out there, this man with the Spider-Man-like ability to climb through bedroom windows, and his victim beseeches Ellery for help in capturing her attacker.

Ellery seeks advice from her friend, FBI profiler Reed Markham, who liberated her from a killer’s closet when she was a child. Reed remains drawn to this unpredictable woman, the one he rescued but couldn’t quite save. The trouble is, Reed is up for a potential big promotion, and his boss has just one condition for the new job—stay away from Ellery. Ellery ignores all the warnings. Instead, she starts digging around in everyone’s past but her own—a move that, at best, could put her out of work permanently, and at worst, could put her in the city morgue.

Review: Joanna Schaffhausen does it again! The first book in this series, The Vanishing Season, was an easy 5 stars and I daresay…this installment is even better! While the first book was a thrilling mystery full of surprises, it was also an introduction to the two main characters: Ellery Hathaway and FBI profiler Reed Markham, as well as the horrors visited upon Ellery when she was a girl. In No Mercy, we learn more about the impacts of Ellery’s trauma on her life long-term and watch as Reed and Ellery try to figure out what they mean to each other. All while another brilliantly written mystery (two actually) unfolds. There is truly nothing this book doesn’t get right! It is “all the things”!

This is one of the books I most anticipated for 2019 and it did not disappoint. While you could read this book without having read the first, I wouldn’t suggest it. Had I gone into No Mercy without everything I learned in The Vanishing Season, I feel certain it would not have been the same reading experience. Still a skillfully written mystery, but going in with so much background information about Ellery and Reed, where their relationship started, how they ended up where they are now (in life and in relation to each other), and loving them before I turned the first page…I feel certain all of this made for the best reading experience possible. Read. The First. Book.

And then read this one!!!

10 Replies to “Review: No Mercy by Joanna Schaffhausen”

    • Have you read the first one? Oh man, I can’t wait until the next one comes out!

      I saw that, and accepted both invites! Thank you so much!! I need to come over and take a tour to see how they both work. 🙂

    • Thank you! She is an excellent storyteller, and she does it without being unnecessarily graphic. I think I recall you saying thriller’s aren’t really your thing, and I totally get it.

  1. Way to go Myndi, you have convinced me to add these to my TBR. This series sounds very well written and the fact that she doesn’t include a lot of graphic violence makes it even better.

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