I was given Rage and Mercy Part 1by Scott Dresden in exchange for an honest review while it was OnlineBookClub.org Book of the Day.
Rage and Mercy Part 1 is a psychological murder-mystery, or perhaps a psychological revenge murder-mystery written in the third person and set mainly in Los Angeles, but also in other parts of the world. The story opens in east downtown Los Angeles with the brutal murder, including decapitation, of a fleeing drug fiend.
The murderer’s name is Seyer and he is also the main protagonist in the story. We learn that an important person in Seyer’s life, although they were in no way romantically connected, was senselessly murdered and then her dead body abused by drug addicts high on something or other.
The woman’s father was distraught naturally enough, but the girl was already the last surviving female in his family. Seyer, a veteran of several US army campaigns, agrees to help avenge the man’s loss.
However, this has other consequences, which are difficult to predict. It is reminiscent of Eli Roth’s ‘Death Wish‘ and Martin Scorsese’s ‘Taxi Driver‘.
Rage and Mercy Part 1 contains a lot of psychological reasoning, which the reader hears through the thoughts of the characters, although, as always, you don’t have to agree with with the conclusions the characters draw, but it is interesting to read why they do the things they do.
Rage and Mercy Part 1 is my kind of book purely because the psychological reasoning of the characters is made evident. I don’t usually care what the book’s characters do, but I do care why they did what they did.
The book’s cover and its title are not immediately obvious, but they are relevant. The contents have also been well edited, if probably not professionally so.
All in all, I enjoyed Rage and Mercy Part 1 very much and recommend it to all readers of the styles I mentioned above.
If you would like to learn more about Rage and Mercy Part 1 by Scott Dresden, please click the following link:
Owen Jones, Amazon Best-Selling Author from Barry, Wales, has lived in several countries and travelled in many more. While studying Russian in the USSR in the '70's, he hobnobbed with spies on a regular basis; in Suriname, he got caught up in the 1982 coup; and while a company director, he joined the crew of four as the galley slave to sail from Barry to Gibraltar a home-made concrete yacht, which was almost rammed by a Russian oil tanker and an American aircraft carrier.
“I am a Celt, and we are romantic”, he said when asked about his writing style, “and I firmly believe in reincarnation, Karma and Fate, so, sayings like 'Do unto another...', and 'What goes round comes around' are central to my life and reflected in my work. I write about what I see, or think I see, or dream... and, in the end it is all the same really”. He speaks seven languages and is learning Thai, since he lives in Thailand with his Thai wife of fifteen years.
His first novel, Daddy's Hobby is from the seven-part series 'Behind The Smile: The Story of Lek, a Bar Girl in Pattaya', but his largest collection is 'The Megan Series', twenty-three novelettes on the psychic development of a teenage girl, the subtitle of which, 'A Spirit Guide, A Ghost Tiger and One Scary Mother!' sums them up nicely. He has written fifty novels and novelettes, including: Dead Centre; Andropov's Cuckoo; Fate Twister; The Disallowed (a philosophical comedy); Tiger Lily of Bangkok; and A Night in Annwn (Annwn being the ancient Welsh word for Heaven). Many have been translated into foreign languages and narrated into audio books.
Owen Jones writes stories set in Wales, Spain and Thailand, where he now lives. He is a life-long Spiritualist, and this belief is interwoven, in a very realistic way, into many of his books and storylines. If you like a touch of the 'supernatural', try his books
He sums his life up thus: “Born in the Land of Song, Living in the Land of Smiles”.
