Book review: Mercy by Victor Methos

Mercy is the second book in the Neon Lawyer series by Victor Methos.  Methos knows how to keep the pages turning and writes with a nice, unobtrusive style, but, in Mercy I think he throws in one plot twist too many, with a resolution that isn't completely worked out. 

In Mercy Brigham Theodore is hired to represent a man who is accused of murdering his wife; one twist is that it's a "mercy killing" - his wife was in horrible pain and about to die from pancreatic cancer. This raises some very interesting and tricky ethical questions but the mystery/trial format of this novel isn't that well suited to dealing with them.  And Theodore himself is conflicted about the case.  Then Methos adds the sort of plot twists that are typical of a trial novel; he does a good job of this, but that detracts from the other aspects.

In short, I think there's a conflict about what this novel is about:

• A trial novel about who did what and whether they will be found guilty
• A novel about the ethics of killing someone who is dying and the ramifications of such killing

Still, it kept me turning the pages and I will be reading more novels in this series.