#BookReview No Mercy by Joanna Schaffhausen @slipperywhisper @MinotaurBooks @FreshFiction

No Mercy by Joanna Schaffhausen
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

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.

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After reading the fantastic THE VANISHING SEASON, I was eager to get my hands on the sequel, NO MERCY. I was not disappointed!

Police officer Ellery Hathaway is now on involuntary leave because she shot a murderer at the end of the last book. The public also knows that she once was the single living survivor of a serial killer, which makes her something of a curiosity. Ellery hates this unwanted attention, as well as being required to attend group therapy for victims of violent crimes. All of this leads to her starting to investigate both an arsonist and a serial rapist. So she turned to her friend, FBI profiler Reed Markham for help, the man who saved her all of those years ago

READ THE REST OF THE REVIEW OVER AT FRESH FICTION!

#BookReview The Vanishing Season by Joanna Schaffhausen (@slipperywhisper) @StMartinsPress @Marablaise

The Vanishing Season by Joanna Schaffhausen
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Ellery Hathaway knows a thing or two about serial killers, but not through her police training. She's an officer in sleepy Woodbury, MA, where a bicycle theft still makes the newspapers. No one there knows she was once victim number seventeen in the grisly story of serial killer Francis Michael Coben. The only victim who lived.

When three people disappear from her town in three years, all around her birthday—the day she was kidnapped so long ago—Ellery fears someone knows her secret. Someone very dangerous. Her superiors dismiss her concerns, but Ellery knows the vanishing season is coming and anyone could be next. She contacts the one man she knows will believe her: the FBI agent who saved her from a killer’s closet all those years ago.

Agent Reed Markham made his name and fame on the back of the Coben case, but his fortunes have since turned. His marriage is in shambles, his bosses think he's washed up, and worst of all, he blew a major investigation. When Ellery calls him, he can’t help but wonder: sure, he rescued her, but was she ever truly saved? His greatest triumph is Ellery’s waking nightmare, and now both of them are about to be sucked into the past, back to the case that made them...with a killer who can't let go.

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The Vanishing Seasons is a fabulous book! This is the kind of book that I breezed through, and that I felt from the very start that I would love and I was not wrong. The story is engrossing. Officer Ellery Hathaway is a young woman, the only surviving victim of a serial killer, and she is the only one that sees the signs out there that there is a serial killer loose. She tries desperately to get her boss who is also her secret lover to see that and when she fails to do so will she turn to the man who saved her as a child FBI Agent Reed Markham. But, is there really a serial killer out there, or has she imagined that?

This is just my kind of book, intense, intriguing and utterly spellbinding. I loved every second of it and I was both disappointed and amazed that this is a debut book. Disappointed that Joanna Schaffhausen hasn't written more books for me to read and amazed that this debut book is so amazingly good! Honestly, I can't wait to read the next book by Schaffhausen!

Ellery Hathaway is an interesting character, and I loved that she ended up being an officer and that her dog is the only male creature that she allows into her home. She has her demons which one will find out as the story progress. Agent Reed Markham as well has his share of problem, both in his personal life and at work and I quite enjoyed their reunion and hunt for a serial killer.

This is if I haven't been clear enough a pretty awesome book and I recommend it warmly!

I want to thank the publisher for providing me with a free copy through NetGalley for an honest review!