As I mentioned in the above review, I read Shades of Mercy first, before picking up the first in the series.
The characterization is much better and the plot equally exciting in Shades of Mercy. The author has toned down Porter Beck's snark, but leaves his wit; the minor characters all have more depth; and the plot involves a hacker that that commandeers a military drone and targets...a prize bull.
As you can imagine the military and the government are all up into the search for the hacker, but Sheriff Porter Beck (whose background in military intelligence and familiarity with his county and its geography) has a childhood connection to the man whose prize bull was targeted and something isn't adding up for Beck.
Beck suspects sixteen-year-old Mercy Vaughn is the hacker, but he's not ready to reveal all he thinks he's figured out, especially since Mercy herself becomes a target. With help from his small team and his sister Brin, he needs to keep some of his suspicions to himself, especially when Mercy disappears.
Full of action, with much better character development than in the first book, Porter Beck's team has progressed into a familiar ensemble of characters that a reader wants to see more of--accompanied by plots that keep the reader guessing. While I ended up liking The Bitter Past, Shades of Mercy is even better and shows the author's growth in melding plot and characters while dealing with some problematic topics.
(A new character who hopefully will be seen in future books is Charlie Blue Horse. Beck never calls her just Charlie, he always uses her full name and gets a kick out of saying it. It seems that the author has a Golden Retriever by the name of Charlie Blue Horse.)
Thanks to NetGalley, St. Martin's Press, & Minotaur Books
Review scheduled for April 29, 2024
336 pages
Publication date: July 16, 2024
Thanks for sharing your thoughts
ReplyDeleteBoth were good, and I like learning something while being entertained. :)
DeleteShades of Mercy does sound like the better book.
ReplyDeleteThe plot in the first book, with the history, was worth it. I'm glad Borgos developed the characters in the second book. I want both characters and plot. :)
DeleteThese sound interesting. It might have been a lucky break for you that you read the second book first because, from what you say, the first one may have scared you off the series if you had read them the other way around. I've often wondered about the "downwinders," especially after learning that they were making The Misfits with some major movie stars of the day relatively near where a lot of the testing was going on.
ReplyDeleteThe character development is much better as is often the case with second books. The plot in the first one has so much interesting information, though!
ReplyDeleteThis is a new author to me. The topic of the books and the setting sound good, and it is good to hear that book 2 improves so much compared to book 1.
ReplyDeleteI'll read more of this author. His plot topics are informative, and by the second book, I was liking all the characters.
ReplyDelete