A Merciful Fate by Kendra Elliot

FBI agent Mercy Kilpatrick has been through so much in the last year my head is starting to spin. Poor girl needs a break! While I understand the need for constant turmoil to make the series continue, her relatives and loved ones must all be fretting at this point and wondering when it's going to be their turn to get shot, raped, abducted or killed! All kidding aside, this is another great installment in the series. While I suppose you could read this as a standalone, there is so much history now with the characters that it makes more sense to start from the begging so you can understand everything that is going on. This time around, Mercy is investigating a thirty-year-old armored-car robbery after the body of one of the robbers turns up. Throw in a tabloid reporter who is nosing around the story, a creepy guy in prison a la Hannibal Lecter (minus the eating people part I guess), an abusive ex who's intent on making his wife pay, and a case of mistaken identity whereby one of Mercy's loved ones gets shot, and you have yourself another fine Eastern Oregon mystery.

A Merciful Silence by Kendra Elliot

Book Four of the Mercy Kilpatrick series was a great installment and slightly better than the middle two. This time Elliot tackles the Sovereign Citizens movement, and doesn’t give them the same respect as she does the preppers, and rightfully so! Truman pulls over one these wingnuts only to learn that he’s kicked a hornet’s nest and is soon abducted by them. Mercy goes into rescue mode, while concurrently trying to solve a series of grisly murders. Are they connected, and can she get to Truman before it’s too late? I was a little sad while reading the book as this was supposed to be the end of the four-book series, but in the author’s note Elliot reveals that there is more to come. Yay! I just hope it doesn’t involve either Mercy or her beau being on the brink of death again… I think they’ve been through enough for a while.

A Merciful Death, Truth and Secret by Kendra Elliot

Sometimes you find a series you like and have to wait months or even years between installments (I'm talking about you Robert Galbraith/J.K. Rowling). Thankfully, Kendra Elliot seems to be a prolific and fast writer, and she's been cranking out the Mercy Kilpatrick series. Set in rural central Oregon and featuring the Prepper community, it's a great 4-5 star series that's mostly murder/mystery with a dash of romance thrown in. Here's a recap of the three books so far.

In A Merciful Death, FBI agent Mercy Kilpatrick returns to her childhood hometown to help solve a spate of murders in the prepper community, which just happens to be the type of environment she grew up in. Mercy left her family under bad terms and hasn't seen or spoken to any of them in fifteen years. needless to say, her return sparks a mixed reaction between her parents and her four siblings. The murderer is stealing weapons from the preppers, and Mercy is worried that her family is getting caught up in the investigation. There are some similarities to a couple of murders that happened fifteen years ago that precipitated Mercy's break with her family. Mercy barely touches her paramour-to-be in Book 1 of this series, but sparks do fly between her and Eagle's Nest police chief Truman Daly. The plot and timing are solid, and Kendra Elliot does a good job of explaining the mindset of the preppers without laughing at them.

A Merciful Truth picks up just two months after Book 1 – Mercy and Truman are getting closer, but Mercy still has her guard up. Kaylie, Mercy’s niece, has moved in with her after the death of her father, and also has a new love in her life, Cade, but life is not peaceful. Someone is setting fires around Eagle’s Nest and shooting at law enforcement officers, while strangers are coming into town and building up a militia. Mercy and Truman are on the case, which will hit close to home once again. Mercy's oldest brother Owen is involved with the "bad" guys, and blames her for the death of their brother Levi. Fast pacing throughout keeps the ball rolling and it’s a solid read.

For Book 3, A Merciful Secret, two more months have gone by again. Winter has arrived in the Cascades, and Mercy has just spent a long night working at her beloved cabin, preparing for whatever disaster might come. As she starts the long drive home at 3 am (does she ever sleep?!), a frightened young girl jumps out of nowhere and leads her back to her own isolated cabin, where her grandmother is dying from a horrific knife attack. While at first it seems like an isolated incident, after it’s connected to a similar but seemingly unrelated murder of a judge in Portland, the FBI is on the case. Was it the young girl’s mother, Salome? The judge’s son, Christian? And why does everybody know everyone anyways? (oh yeah, it’s a small town!) While the identity of the killer and the big “secret” was kind of obvious, I enjoyed the way Kendra Elliot pieced everything together, I’m still rooting for Mercy, and the end was pretty heartbreaking, so I must be invested in the characters.