3 out of 4 stars
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No Mercy by RJ Torbert is the continuation of The Face of Fear. In The Face of Fear, Deborah was kidnapped, and Rachelle and several others were almost murdered. Rachelle’s sister, Madison, decided to take matters into her own hands. Donning the Ghost Face mask, she killed six people who were involved in the kidnapping and attempted murders. She was sentenced to ten years in prison for the murders. After this investigation ended, a special task force called Priority 1 was set up. In No Mercy, killings have suddenly begun, and the task force has become involved. Someone is killing young women that look an awful lot like Deborah. As the new investigation goes on, things start connecting back to the Face of Fear investigation. The Priority 1 team must figure out who is killing these girls and stop them.
It is possible to read this book as a standalone, but I honestly think it would be better to read The Face of Fear first. I hadn’t read the first book before I read this one. I was able to understand everything that was going on because the author does a good job of making sure that the main ideas from the first book are explained where needed. However, I had a problem with the development of characters. Because the characters had already been introduced in the first book, I felt like I missed out on a lot of development. By only reading the second book, I didn’t quite get to know the characters as well as I had wanted to. I also want to note that there are a lot of characters, so getting to know them in the first book would have made things a little easier to understand.
My favorite aspect of this book was the relationships between the characters. Even though this was a crime novel, there were a few romantic relationships thrown in the mix and a lot of friendships. I thought that these different relationships were a nice change of pace from the investigation that continues throughout the story. I also really liked that no loose end was left at the end of this book. The author did a great job of tying everything off. I knew the how every problem in the book was resolved. I think it's even better that the author managed to do this, but he still left suspense at the end. I'm sensing a new book in the making!
The editing in this book, however, could use some more work. I didn’t notice very many errors in the first part of the book, but there were a lot of errors as the book went on. There were quite a few errors in the use of commas and quotation marks. Another complaint I have is that there wasn’t any warning when the story was switching to follow a new characters. One paragraph would be about one character, then the next was suddenly about someone else. It was a little bit confusing.
My biggest complaint about this book is that I felt like it was lacking suspense. Things just happened without a lot of build up. My favorite part of mystery and crime novels is trying to figure out who did it. I want to feel like I am a part of the investigation as it goes on. This book didn’t really allow for that. A lot of important information wasn’t mentioned until the end. Without this information, it was hard to make my own theories about what happened.
I give No Mercy 3 out of 4 stars. I think it’s important to mention that my actual rating would run a little closer to 2.5 stars if decimal ratings were possible. I rounded up because I think that a 2-star rating would be unfair. Overall, it was a well-written crime novel. All of the loose ends are tied off, and nothing was left unresolved. However, the suspense that I was looking forward to just wasn’t there. The editing was also slightly distracting from the plot of the book. I would recommend this book if you can overlook the few complaints I had. Again, I would recommend reading The Face of Fear first if you want to really understand the characters and their roles in the book. If you don’t mind not fully getting to know the characters, you will be fine jumping right into this book.
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No Mercy
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I think I have to agree about character development. I just read the third of a trilogy and it was difficult for me to relate to the protagonist since I didn't know what he'd been through and I didn't understand why he did what he did. Good job on the review.
