The Mercy Chair

De: M. W. Craven

Narrado por: John Banks

'Mesmerising, macabre and magnificent. The Mercy Chair is truly terrifying, laugh-out-loud funny, and impossibly clever. Poe and Tilly are unstoppable' Chris Whitaker

'Washington Poe is a brilliant creation, from one of the finest and most inventive crime writers of today' Peter James

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Are you sitting comfortably? Then I'll begin . . .

Washington Poe has a story to tell.

And he needs you to listen.

You'll hear how it started with the robber birds. Crows. Dozens of them. Enough for a murder . . .

He'll tell you about a man who was tied to a tree and stoned to death, a man who had tattooed himself with a code so obscure, even the gifted analyst Tilly Bradshaw struggled to break it. He'll tell you how the man's murder was connected to a tragedy that happened fifteen years earlier when a young girl massacred her entire family.

And finally, he'll tell you about the mercy chair. And why people would rather kill themselves than talk about it . . .

Poe hopes you've been paying attention. Because in this story, nothing is as it seems . . .

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'Craven renders the darkness of the human condition with immense skill, ratcheting the tension to a nails-on-chalkboard pitch. Don't turn out the lights.' Vaseem Khan

MORE PRAISE FOR MW CRAVEN:

'The kind of novel that inspired me to write fiction in the first place. A guaranteed great time.' Chris Brookmyre

'Darkly entertaining' The Telegraph

'If you haven't read any M.W. Craven yet, fix that immediately' S. A. Cosby

'I've been following M.W. Craven's Poe/Tilly series from the very beginning, and it just gets better and better' Peter Robinson

'Poe and Tilly books are a joy' Steve Cavanagh

'In Tilly and Poe, M.W. Craven has created a stand-out duo who are two of the most compelling characters in crime fiction in recent years' Fiona Cummins

'Darkly comic . . . Thrilling' The Independent

'Clever, sophisticated, utterly gripping thriller from one of the best writers around' Mari Hannah

'Craven has unleashed Ben Koenig into the thriller world. Long may he raise hell in the pages. A superb thriller that will have everyone talking, and gasping.' David Baldacci

'Paging Lee and Andrew Child: you've got company' The Times©2024 M. W. Craven

How does someone come up with plot twists upon plot twists

That was some incredible novel, when you think it’s wrapped up, another plot twist, then again, and again. Wow!!!

4.25 Stars 🌟

The crazy thing about jumping back into this world was that I hadn't realized how much time had already flown by since I read the last book. (About 2 years). Why was that crazy? Well, because the minute I jumped back in - it felt like no time had passed at all. It actually gave me such a warm feeling to get to be back with Poe and Tilly....and that is not something that I can say about too many series.

Now, about this book. This book started off a little different from any of the previous books. There is definitely way more telling than showing, but I think that was the goal. Poe is actually detailing his last case as he is sitting down with a therapist, so we jump between his narration and his POV in the present and past timelines. Honestly, it did take a while to get used to.

The case itself was odd in the fact that I felt like Poe didn't do as much actual investigating as normal. It seemed like there was a lot of running from place to place and a bunch of just "happening" to uncover things. Odd.......

Tilly was there, but in a much-diminished capacity and that was a bummer. She really brings so much to the story - one of those super rare one in a million characters.

Also, one thing that did bother me was the overuse of foreshadowing. And the excess build up that we have not really gotten in the past. I can't think of an exact example but Poe would say something like, "and then we uncovered the real horror." I know, I know, I should go find an actual example, just know that I'm paraphrasing. It took away from the actual tension build up when you first throw it out there that what you just found was going to be ~Throw in whatever descriptive word here~

That is not to say that I didn't enjoy the twists, because I did. I always love it when I am surprised at the end of a book because that does not happen as often as I would like it to - so there is that. I was NOT too fond of the actual ending situation. That was even too over the top for me.

As I'm typing this, I was just realizing that it might sound like I didn't like this book when I really did. I think it is just that I have LOVED this series - I mean each book has been a huge 5 star read for me, so my expectations are set pretty high. Even with everything I just mentioned, I still enjoyed the heck out of this book. I LOVED being back into Poe and Tilly's world and I am even more excited to be able to continue on to the next book. (The one great thing about not realizing that you had missed the newest book releases is to realize that there is already another book out after this one).

SCORE!!!!

Oh, I would be remiss if I didn't mention the EXCELLENT job at narration that has been done by the voice of this series - narrator John Banks. He does such a great job with all of the characters and all of the differing accents, but he really excels with his portrayal of Tilly. I don't think I could handle hearing anyone else ever doing the audio - that is as big of a compliment that I could give.

Now, on to the next book :)

Good

Excellent narration as usual. I didn’t enjoy the story as much as the previous ones but it’s still a good listen. Good twist- didn’t see it coming.

Twisty!

I LOVE Poe and Bradshaw. This story was excellent with a dark and twisty plot. It keeps you guessing until the end. Great characters and a fast pace. Excellent!

Solid twist

Love the narrator as always. There was a very good twist, in fact a few good ones. Not my favorite in terms of the recurring characters story line but still very much worth the listen.