Without Mercy

Lisa Jackson

Kensington Publishing C orp.,  New York, NY 10019

Hardcover - 424 pp

ISBN 978-0-7582-2564-1

$25.00

Reviewed by Allan Leverone

Jules Farentino is floundering; her life in a shambles after discovering her father murdered, presumably as a result of a botched home invasion. Unable to cope with her recurring nightmares and debilitating migraine headaches, Jules loses her teaching job and fears the worst when her seventeen year old half-sister Shaylee is shipped off to an elite boarding school for troubled teens after numerous scrapes with the law.

After receiving a panicked call from Shay that things are not as they seem at the remote school located in the mountains of Oregon, Jules begins researching Blue Rock Academy. Despite the idyllic picture painted by the school’s website, and glowing testimonials from former students, she fears there is a darker side to the institution. One student missing and feared dead. A teacher let go following a sex scandal with another student.

Concerned for her sister’s safety, Jules manages to get herself hired as a teacher at Blue Rock just as the biggest snowstorm of the decade hits, and just as more dead bodies begin piling up. Reunited with a former lover, Cooper Trent, himself working undercover to determine the fate of the first missing student, Jules discovers there is no shortage of potential suspects in the grisly murders.

With a blizzard raging and the school cut off from the outside world, Jules and Trent must put aside their differences and find a way to work together to have any chance of saving Shay and themselves and avoiding further bloodshed. 

Lisa Jackson is the author of an incredible eighty-six books, many of them New York Times bestsellers. In WITHOUT MERCY, Jackson stirs up a stew of troubled teens and morally questionable adults, mixing in equal parts lost love, treachery, sex, trust and betrayal. When the bodies begin falling at Blue Rock Academy, the list of potential suspects is nearly as long as the roster of students and teachers at the school, and survival depends upon unraveling the clues before it is too late.

The book starts unevenly, as Jackson works to establish sub-plots involving the murder of Jules’ father, the failure of her romance with Cooper Trent under circumstances that are never fully explained, her disastrous rebound marriage, and tangled familial relationships where nothing is quite as it seems. Once the action begins at Blue Rock Academy, however, Jackson moves the story along, ratcheting up the suspense, concealing the identity of the mysterious “Leader,” the evil force behind all of the dark happenings at the school, and saving one final, shocking twist for the last few pages.

There is not a whole lot new in WITHOUT MERCY, but Lisa Jackson has developed a formula that works and works well, and her many fans will find plenty to like in her latest offering.

DISCLOSURE OF MATERIAL CONNECTION

I have a material connection because I received a review copy that I can keep for consideration in preparing to write this content. I was not expected to return this item after my review.