I really liked Mary Burton's Senseless, which focused on Eva Rayburn and the murders taking place around her after she has served her own sentence for murder and been released from prison. In that story, we also heard a little about Eva’s sister Angie Carlson, the lawyer.

Angie now gets her own book with its own murder, romance and general mayhem. She also gets to spend more time with Detective Malcolm Kier, partner of Deacon Garrison (Eva’s significant other), whom she initially strongly disliked - and the feeling was mutual.

A year ago, Angie represented Dr. James Dixon in a murder trial; he was acquitted after her cross-examination of a key witness. When that witness comes to Angie for help with a custody case, little does Angie realize that she’s starting down a road where there are murders, and she is a link between them. As Angie helps Kier to get to the bottom of the crimes, her view of him changes. They uncover secrets going back many decades, but can they find the perpetrator before Angie becomes his next victim?

Well, any reader of this kind of book can probably answer that last question without reading it, but the book still manages suspense and interest. I wonder if there may be a book in the future about Angie’s lawyer - colleague Charlotte - who gets several mentions.

Merciless also continues the story of the relationship between Eva and Garrison. And yes, she calls him that, despite that being his surname - as Angie calls Malcolm ‘Kier’. Seems a bit weird to me as a Brit; no way would I refer to a friend by their surname, but maybe that’s a trans-Atlantic cultural thing.

The plot culminates with an easy-to-predict event in Angie’s personal life which seemed rather too farfetched to me, but overall I really enjoyed Merciless and felt that Burton did a good job in concealing the identity of the murderer until the end.