A Good Man Gone is the first in the long-running, fantastic, wildly entertaining Mercy Watts mystery series. When I first acquired this book I was just expecting your typical rom-com. Boy, was I surprised! Mercy was so charmingly unlike most characters and the book was so engaging I was immediately hooked. And thus began my ongoing love of all things Mercy and my desire to read anything by author A. W. Hartoin.

Mercy is very likable – and she can get into trouble just by getting out of bed in the morning. Her behavior is a little immature at times and she doesn’t always make the best decisions, and she has the typical conflict with her parents. But she never comes across as spoiled or mean-spirited or stupid, which seems to happen far too often in mysteries these days. She is a grown woman with a career, can take care of herself (most of the time!) and family is important to her. And – she looks exactly like Marilyn Monroe. Definitely more a curse than a blessing. The references to her figure were a little goofy but did not detract from my enjoyment of the story, nor did the humor. In fact, I found myself laughing out loud several times, and as already noted, couldn’t put this down until I finished it.

The characters were quirky enough to be interesting but not so over-the-top that I didn’t want to see them again or learn more about them. The plot was solid, moved along quickly and kept me guessing. Highly recommend this book and the rest in the thoroughly enjoyable series, as well as everything else this talented author has written.

I am voluntarily leaving this review; all opinions are my own. ( )

With her father, the detective on a cruise it is left to Mercy Watts to investigate the death of a family friend. Which leads her to another death, are these connected and how? ( )

While this isn't my favorite series, I will give a thumbs up to the author for being creative. Having Mercy Watts be a Marilyn Monroe look-a-like makes for a fun read. I'm not a MM fan; however, it did add to Mercy's character. And kudos to the author for setting up the next story in this book.
Mercy lives in St. Louis, close to her parents. Her dad is a well known PI. Unfortunately, he has taken ill while on a cruise. His close friend has been murdered and now it's up to Mercy to find how how and why.
This book did make me laugh in a few places. Right now, I do NOT plan on reading any more of the series, unless I have nothing else to read. ( )

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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I really enjoyed this audio book. To start with I wasn't sure if I liked Mercy, I found her to be self obsorbed, self-centred and a bit annoying with what I felt was whinging. However, after a while, I realised that people probably do carry on like she does i.e. moan in their own head how annoying a family relative or friend of the family can be or when your parents do the guilt trip on you. After a while I found I could relate to her and it amused me.I thought this book had a good story line, with interesting twists and turns. I did pick early on who I thought the stalker was and for a moment there I did doubt myself until the person was revealed and I realised that it seemed quite obvious. I did like how the story wrapped up and I found that each of the individuals had pretty good character development.I certainly recommend this as a light hearted mystery with a female as the main sleuth. I look foward to the book in the series. ( )