The Mercy Seat: A Joe Donovan Thriller

Book:	The Mercy Seat: A Joe Donovan Thriller
Author:	Martyn Waites
Honors:	2006 Steel Dagger shortlist Score: 6.56
Genres:	Mystery/Suspense books
Publisher:	Pegasus Books

A research scientist has gone missing. An ace newspaper reporter has disappeared; so has a minidisc, along with its incriminating evidence. And a teenage hustler is on the run. In his pursuer, the Hammer, a skin-headed professional killer with a blue sapphire tooth and a taste for death metal, “the principle of evil” has indeed been “made flesh.”

From its staggering opening to an electrifying finish, its prose pumping adrenaline all the way, Martyn Waites’ new novel wrests former investigative journalist Joe Donovan out of his reclusion in Newcastle. His heart broken by the disappearance of his six-year-old son two years earlier-a case that remains unsolved-he now finds his destiny entwined with that of the streetwise but vulnerable and frightened teenager Jamal. For on the minidisc, lifted by an unwitting Jamal, lies a crucial, increasingly perilous link to Donovan’s past.

Unsettling and unpredictable, this taut, compelling page-turner of a novel delivers point-blank every unexpected narrative hit, twist, and turn as it leads Donovan finally to the terror of the mercy seat.

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