Aubrey Hamilton Reviews: No Mercy by John Gilstrap

John Gilstrap’s series of thrillers about a private investigator who specializes in rescuing kidnap victims has been on my TBR list for a while. The first book worked its way to the top a few weeks ago, and it was just the escape from reality I needed. Unfolding mostly in Virginia and Indiana, the two places I’ve called home the longest, the high-octane story was satisfyingly low in angst and high in action.

 

No Mercy (Pinnacle, 2009) opens with Jonathan Grave, loaded with high-tech surveillance equipment, on the ground in a small rural community in central Indiana, preparing to extract a hostage, a music student from Ball State University in Muncie, from his captives. The maneuver goes sideways, and Grave kills the kidnappers to save the student. In his rush to remove the student and himself from the scene, Grave leaves enough evidence that the sheriff of the quiet town pieces together a credible picture of what happened. She is determined that the rescuers, regardless of their honorable intent, should go on trial for the murder of the kidnappers. We’ll have no vigilantes in our town, thankyouverymuch.

 

Oblivious just yet to the knowledge that law enforcement is looking for him and back in Virginia, Grave learns from his ex-wife that her husband is missing and she wants Grave to find him. Grave loathes his replacement and agrees reluctantly. Before he can organize his resources and begin a search, she is savagely murdered and her home torn apart in an obvious hunt for something. The Indiana police going all out to find him and the Virginia police asking questions about just what he was doing while his wife was being killed, Grave hides from them while tracking down his ex-wife’s assassins and the missing husband.

 

Definitely a cut above the usual action hero, Gilstrap’s protagonist is a real person with friends who try to protect him and mixed feelings about what he does for a living. I liked him, and I liked the momentum of the intense plot which is far from routine. Book 13 in the series due out next spring, and I have 11 more to get through before then. Highly recommended to readers looking for a well-written and original contemporary thriller.

 

 

·         Mass Market Paperback : 464 pages

·         ISBN-10 : 0786020873

·         ISBN-13 : 978-0786020874

·         Publisher : Pinnacle; Original Edition (July 1, 2009)

·         Language: English

 

Aubrey Hamilton ©2020 

Aubrey Hamilton is a former librarian who works on Federal It projects by day and reads mysteries at night.