Shades of Mercy by Bruce Borgos

In the usually quiet high desert of Nevada, Sheriff Porter Beck faces one of his greatest challenges—a series of unlikely, disturbing and increasingly deadly events of unknown origins.

Porter Beck is the sheriff in the high desert of Nevada, doing the same lawman's job his father once did now that he's returned home after decades away. With his twelve person department, they cover a large area that is usually very quiet, but not of late. One childhood friend is the latest to succumb to a new wave of particularly strong illegal opioids, another childhood friend—now an enormously successful rancher—is targeted by a military drone, hacked and commandeered by an unknown source. The hacker is apparently local—local enough to call out Beck by name—and that means they are Beck's problem.

Beck's investigation leads him to Mercy Vaughn, the one known hacker in the area. The problem is that she's a teenager, locked up with no computer access at the secure juvenile detention center. But there's something Mercy that doesn't sit quite right with Beck. But when Mercy disappears, Beck understands that she's in danger and time is running out for all of them.

 

 

Book 2
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Audiobook (US)
Narrated by James Babson

 

 

Reviews by the Wicked Reads Review Team

Avid Reader – ☆☆☆☆
M/F Mystery
Triggers: Click HERE to see Avid Reader’s review on Goodreads for trigger warnings.

Mercy is a teen who has found herself incarcerated for stealing millions of dollars. She is genius level smart, especially with computers, and when her knack for hacking becomes an issue, the U.S. Government will stop at nothing to prevent her from using her skills.

Beck is a small-town police officer. He knows the townspeople, has friends he grew up with, and now, has to track down drugs that are somehow killing his residents. As he tries to unravel the mystery behind where the drugs are coming from and who is behind it, Beck is thrust into the middle of a government operation that he knows smells off.

With the military sniffing around and some shifty characters entering his town, Beck will have to figure out if he can trust the fellow alphabet officers who've started to invade his town. Mercy will have to decide where her loyalties will fall. Mercy's life is staked high in this game of cat and mouse.

This was a good mystery. It was a little chaotic in the beginning, but I enjoyed watching the characters really learn to trust themselves and each other, even with the mystery behind what was going on, but overall, this was a fun read. I can't wait to see if she's in the next book.

 

 

BRUCE BORGOS lives and writes from the Nevada desert where he works hard every day to prove his high school guidance counselor had good instincts when he said “You’ll never be an astronaut.” He has a degree in political science which mostly served to dissuade him from a career in law while at the same time tormenting his wife with endless questions about how telephones work. When not writing, you can usually find him at the local wine store. He is the author of The Bitter Past.

Connect with Bruce Borgos!

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ARC provided by

Reviewers on the Wicked Reads Review Team were provided with a free copy of Shades of Mercy (Porter Beck Mysteries #2) by Bruce Borgos to read and review.