Beg For Mercy by Jami Alden

Title:  Beg For Mercy

Author:  Jami Alden

Series:  Romantic Suspense Trilogy (Book 1)

Publisher:  Grand Central Publishing

ISBN:  9780446572804

Page Count:  413 

Plot According to the Book:

Megan Flynn thought she was falling in love.  Cole Williams wasn’t just handsome and passionate, he was one of the good guys.  Or so she thought, until he arrested her brother--the only family she has left--for a murder she knows he couldn’t have possibly committed.  Now with her heart broken and her brother’s life hanging in the balance, Megan will risk everything to prove his innocence.  Even if that means throwing herself into the path of a sadistic killer with a hauntingly familiar MO.

Seattle Detective Cole Williams had given up on making Megan see reason where her brother is concerned.  But when she insinuates herself into the most shockingly brutal case Cole has ever worked, he can’t stand idly by.  Plunged into a secret world where the city’s elite indulge their darkest desires, Cole will do whatever it takes to bring down a madman who has made Megan his most coveted prey.

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Jami Alden is a new-to-me author.  I thought this was a debut novel until I visited the author’s website and was very pleasantly  surprised that there were more books to devour.

Ms. Alden sets up a very intriguing world in her book.  The heroine, Megan Flynn is absolutely sure that her brother did not commit the heinous murder that he’s sitting on death row for.  So sure, that despite all of the evidence that the police have, Megan is willing to make herself look like a fool by chasing down any lead that might get her brother exonerated.  While it would have been very easy for Megan to come across as flighty or irritating, Ms. Alden has a way of grounding Megan in reality that actually makes her sympathetic.  Megan knows that some of the leads she gets will go nowhere, but her brother is on death row and she has to save him.  

Maybe I was drawn to the relationship that Megan and Sean Flynn have because it reminds me of the bond that my brother and I share.  And no, my brother’s not on death row, but this plot made me think about how hard I would fight for my brother if he was on death row.  Megan’s unshakeable belief that she knew her brother well enough to know that he would never commit this crime, despite everyone questioning her, was inspiring in a way.  

On the flip side of the novel is the  hero, Detective Cole Williams.  He is sure that he and his partner arrested the right guy for the murder of Evangeline Gordon.  And as much as it pains him to lose his relationship with Megan, he has to do his job.  All of the evidence points to Sean Flynn as the murderer.  End of story for Detective Williams.

The relationship between Megan and Cole will melt your fingers, it’s so hot.  The characters were dating each other at the time of Sean Flynn’s arrest and it’s clear from the moment they re-meet each other that neither has truly gotten over or forgotten the other.  

Ms. Alden set up a humdinger of a plot.  She has to deftly move the hero and heroine past the huge obstacle in their path:  the characters’ belief that the other character is wrong about what the heroine’s brother did or did not do.  She also deftly sets up a shadow world where evil exists just below the surface if you look hard enough.  And while the main villain in the book operates almost separately, he is connected to a shadow organization that will play a part in the next two books of the series.

My only quibble with the book is how shoddy the police investigation into Evangeline Gordon’s murder was.  Ms. Alden establishes that Sean was visibly drugged or appeared out of it when he was initially arrested.  Did the police not run a drug test?  Why didn’t they dig deeper into Evangeline’s past?  At times their investigation was extremely laughable, because it seemed as though they put forth very little effort into truly investigating the murder.  But I guess this had to be, so we could see Megan’s struggle and eventually Cole’s struggle with how shoddy the investigation was.

Ms. Alden’s plotting and writing style are, to me, reminiscent of author Karen Rose’s.  She paints a very vivid picture with her lead and supporting characters, and I cannot wait to revisit it in Sean Flynn and Krista Slater’s book Hide From Evil, which comes out in November 2011.

Highly Recommended for fans of romantic suspense and hot romance.    Run, do not walk, to get a copy of Beg For Mercy for your keeper shelf!