The Mercy Chair by M. W. Craven

 

When a badger disturbs a grave, an unexpected extra body is discovered. Little does Washington Poe realise that this will have connections to a religious cult and a triple murder case.

From the outset, The Mercy Chair by M. W. Craven has a sinister and unsettling tone. The description of the psychiatric hospital in the opening chapter is disquieting. As we then learn that Poe is struggling with the after-effects of a case you immediately know it must be something extreme.

What follows is a conversation, or consultation, between Poe and Doctor Lang as he recounts the events that have left him with PTSD. The leader of a religious group was tied to a tree and stoned to death. We learn that as Poe and Tilly focused the investigation on the remaining members of the group, they discovered that it is more of a cult, with extreme views, some of which are very topical. I was getting “Handmaid’s Tale” vibes the more we learned about the beliefs of the cult and the behaviour of its members.

The conversation outlining the case is linear but M. W. Craven really keeps the reader in suspense. As you reach pivotal moments in the plot Poe will evade direct questions or say that “there was worse to come”. This keeps you gripped and revelation after revelations is more shocking than the last. There are twists galore and the reason for Poe’s PTSD becomes clear about halfway through, however, there still remain questions about some of the comments Poe has made to Dr. Lang. The tension keeps building as layer upon layer of the story is stripped away.

Despite a diagnosis of PTSD we still get to see the gruff, no-nonsense side of Washington Poe. There’s the odd bit of humour (we learn that Poe doesn’t like frozen yoghurt) and some merciless teasing. Generally, this teasing is aimed at an auditor who has been tasked with shadowing Poe and Tilly. The identity of the auditor and their reason for being forced upon Poe and Tilly has far-reaching consequences.

The Mercy Chair by M. W. Craven will be published on 6^th June 2024 in hardback, ebook and audio format. I received my copy as a prize in a competition organised by Capital Crime (@CapitalCrime1)

Author Details

Multi-award-winning author M.W. Craven was born in Carlisle but grew up in Newcastle. He joined the army at sixteen, leaving ten years later to complete a social work degree. Seventeen years after taking up a probation officer role in Cumbria, at the rank of assistant chief officer, he became a full-time author. He is an instant Sunday Times bestseller and, for his Cumbria-set Washington Poe series, a recipient of the 2019 Crime Writers’ Association Gold Dagger, the 2022 Ian Fleming Steel Dagger and the Theakston Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year 2023. The series has now been translated into twenty-seven languages