Mercy Street - Mariah Stewart

From New York Times bestselling author Mariah Stewart comes a novel of sexy romantic suspense for fans of Nora Roberts, Catherine Coulter, and Karen Robards.

Mariah Stewart crafts compelling stories of romantic
suspense, full of richly imagined characters, dazzling plot twists, and breathless
action that keeps the pages turning. Now Stewart begins a thrilling new series-with
a novel that proves to be her biggest and boldest yet.

On a balmy spring evening,
four high school seniors-three boys and a girl-enter a park in the small Pennsylvania
city of Conroy. The next morning, two of the boys are found shot to death, and the
girl and the third boy are gone. After three weeks with no leads and no sign of either
of the two missing teenagers, the chief of police begins to wonder if they too were
victims. But with no other suspects, the authorities conclude that one of these kids
was the shooter.

The missing boy's grandmother, a secretary at the local parish
church, maintains his innocence. On her behalf, the parish priest, Father Kevin Burch,
hires former detective Mallory Russo as a private investigator to figure out what
happened in the park that night. Mallory had ended her nine-year stint with the Conroy
police force some time ago after becoming a target of a smear campaign. Now a true-crime
author, Mallory is surprised to receive the priest's offer-and highly intrigued by
the case. She can't help but accept the challenge-especially when she learns that
her investigation will be financed by Father Burch's cousin the reclusive billionaire
Robert Magellan, a man whose own wife and infant son disappeared without a trace
a year ago, a man who understands the heartache of not knowing what happened to a
loved one.

Detective Charlie Wanamaker is facing another sort of tragedy. He fled
Conroy years ago with no plans to return to what he considered a dying factory town-until a family emergency brought him back. Finding the situation much worse than
he'd thought, he trades his job as a big-city detective for one with the Conroy police
department. Assigned to the park shooting case, Charlie quickly realizes that the
initial investigation left a lot of questions unanswered. Unofficially, he teams
up with Mallory to uncover the truth and find the two kids, dead or alive. What Charlie
and Mallory discover will take them down a twisted path that leads to an old unsolved
murder-and justice for a killer with a heart of stone.

Mercy Street is tautly paced,
resonant with emotion, and relentlessly gripping. It showcases Mariah Stewart at
her most brilliant, as she ratchets up the suspense to new levels of excitement.

Praise for Mariah Stewart

"Mariah Stewart is one to watch and savor for a long
time."-The Philadelphia Inquirer

"Stewart can always be counted on to write an
exciting romantic suspense thriller."-TheBestReviews.com