• A Good Man Gone

  • Mercy Watts Mysteries, Book 1
  • By: A.W. Hartoin
  • Narrated by: Lyssa Browne
  • Length: 9 hrs and 59 mins
  • 3.9 out of 5 stars (129 ratings)

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A Good Man Gone  By  cover art

A Good Man Gone

By: A.W. Hartoin
Narrated by: Lyssa Browne
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Publisher's summary

It's summer in St. Louis and Mercy Watts is on vacation from her parents. The great detective and his nosy wife are on a cruise and Mercy thinks she's off the hook for doing any investigating for them. But when a family friend has a fatal heart attack, Dad has one of his famous feelings and orders Mercy to look into it. Mercy tries not to get sucked in. She really does, but she's her father's daughter. Soon Gavin's death leads to a more grisly one, the death of a bride on her wedding day. Can the two be connected? Was Gavin murdered? Now Mercy can't stop. You do for family. That's all there is to it.

©2013 A. W. Hartoin (P)2014 A. W. Hartoin

What listeners say about A Good Man Gone

Average customer ratings
Overall
  • 4 out of 5 stars
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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Funny and entertaining

This was a fun lighthearted book that makes it delightful to read. Mercy is a nurse who is being enticed into participating in the family business of private investigator. While she is unwittingly cutting teeth in the investigation business, she is being hassled with being a look-a-like Marilyn Moore and having her pictures plaster on youtube.

She is surrounded with an amusing group of people, her ex-police father, her mother, from whom she inherited her Marilyn looks, two funny god mothers, and a host of others. The mystery is interesting, but remember this is a comedy first. Many of the reviewers did not like the references to Marilyn or how often. That was not a big deal to me. Actually, that added a comedic element; the paparazzi constantly chasing her catching her in compromising situations.

I am hooked on the series.

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3 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    1 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    1 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    1 out of 5 stars

Not for me

I'm glad I bought this book for 1.99 after getting the Kindle version for free. The lead character, Mercy Watts, is annoying and unlikeable. She is related to everyone involved. Mercy also has issues because she looks like Marilyn Monroe. This is a very important point in the book because it is mentioned every three pages. Although it annoys her to look like Marilyn, she doesn't seem to mind using this to her advantage. Then, she complains about it. Like I said, not for me.

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2 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    1 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    1 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    1 out of 5 stars

Gah. Too many issues to name.

This seems to be a book in which the author lives out a fantasy of looking like Marilyn Monroe along with thinking and talking about it more than 75% of the time. The rest of the story is given over to how she's smarter than everyone else, fat-shaming, body size obsession, and food shaming. The humor isn't nice and the 'mystery' is not compelling. Hard pass on this mid-way through the book because it was NOT getting better as it went along.

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1 person found this helpful

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    2 out of 5 stars

Not sure how I like the book but not the character

This is weird because I didn’t like any of the characters but I enjoyed the story. Not sure how that works. Mercy Watts is not a likable person and then we you meet her parents you realize they raised her that way. Mercy spends the entire book doing whatever her family asks her to do and using her looks to get what she wants from other people. She treats and judges people by their looks at the same time she is lamenting about people judging her for her looks.

The mystery is great though and the author does a really good job of linking all the stories and pieces together. The bad guy is extremely obvious from the get-go but I didn’t feel bored while Mercy put the links together. This was the only thing that saved the book for me.

I enjoyed the narrator and will like listening to other stories by this narrator.

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1 person found this helpful

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    3 out of 5 stars

Amazing Potential Lost

Is there anything you would change about this book?

I would give the main character, Mercy Watts, a backbone!

What was the most interesting aspect of this story? The least interesting?

Having a beautiful, smart protagonist who happens to look like Marilyn Monroe would have been more interesting, if she hadn't let so many men in the book push her around! Mercy's inability to stand up for herself when faced with her father's friends, her cousin, etc. was so disappointing, and really unnecessary. Why waste so much intelligence on someone so easily pushed around?

Do you think A Good Man Gone needs a follow-up book? Why or why not?

Not unless it's about how Mercy toughens up.

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1 person found this helpful

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars

Standard Fare

A cute little story. Enjoyable and worth a listen. Good characters. Good pacing. Humorous and fun.

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1 person found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

awesome

loved it! my husband and i thought it was a good listen. good story & performance

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1 person found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Laugh out loud.

laughing isn't something you expect from a murder. it is a really good story and the narration was good, you could tell who the different people were, and I couldn't tell who did it until the very last.

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1 person found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

A Good Man Gone

I absolutely love this series and wish all the books were available in audio. This series is clever and funny with a very well written mystery. Of course there are some outrageous characters, that is part of the charm! Mercy ends up in precarious positions despite trying to avoid them and always uses her wit and intelligence to figure things out. She is taken advantage of by her family, knows it, and helps anyway. I have listened to the few audios available a number of times and have also repeatedly read the books. Love, love, love this series.

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  • Overall
    2 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    2 out of 5 stars

Meh.

Main character too annoying and unlikeable - doesn’t have my buy-in. I made my way through 95% of the listen and am getting increasingly irritated. No character growth arc in sight. Can’t make myself finish the story and at this point I don’t even care. Also, for being a busy ER nurse she sure doesn’t work much. This one is a disappointing nope for me.

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