Mercy [Mass Market Paperback]

Echo Heron (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 22, 1993

"ENGROSSING ([An] intriguing combination of nurse and detective story."
--Library Journal
With a sharp eye and even sharper pen, Echo Heron stunned the world with her gritty, passionate, brutally honest account of a nurse's daily life in her national bestseller, Intensive Care. Now she turns her humor, honesty and compassion to a gripping story of a nurse facing burnout.
Cat Richardson is battle weary and disillusioned. With a heart--and a mouth--as big as her 12EEE shoes, she's continually bucking a system choked by hospital politics, egomaniacal doctors, frustrated co-workers. After twenty-five-hour days battling chaos, and caring for patients who desperately need her, Cat is losing both patience and her mind.
Then an intriguing police detective investigating the brutal beating of a celebrated artist breathes new life into her frantic, loveless existence, and a special patient nurtures her fading spirit...even as danger strikes perilously close to home (.
A Book-of-the-Month Club Alternate

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Heron, a nurse and author of the nonfiction bestseller Intensive Care , cobbles together a lumpy, unevenly written novel from disparate elements of New Age mysticism, creepy thrillers and standard romantic yarns. Red-haired heroine Cat Richardson is a deliberately daffy, self-confessed "Sister of Masochism"--a nurse, that is--at San Francisco's Mercy Hospital, where she gives her superiors plenty of grief and her patients enormous support. Entrusted to her care are Corky, a suicidal adolescent, and Lucy Cross, a gifted artist viciously beaten by her boyfriend, a tormented male model. A blind newsseller named Gage who possesses "the sight" knows that Cat has power she isn't tapping. As her spiritual guide, Gage eggs her on toward danger and romance with the cop investigating the Cross case. ("You wear the haunted look of someone who has stared the beast in the face and survived," that swain observes.) There's a creative, rough-edged charm to the cheerfully obscene repartee between Cat and best friend Nora, but the heavy-handed psychological motives fueling the action owe a lot to bestsellers from the thriving recovery industry. BOMC alternate.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal

This oddly intriguing combination of nurse and detective story becomes more engrossing as it gains momentum. Cat Richardson lives a nurse's usual life--she's underpaid, overworked, and unappreciated by the hospital administration and the doctors. The story takes place over the course of a week when Cat's patients include an AIDS victim, a teenager who has attempted suicide, and a famous artist whose psychopathic lover has beaten her severely and may be coming back to finish the job. Detective Padcula's intervention is the catalyst that sets everything in motion as Cat's involvement with her patients brings on the final confrontation. The raw, gritty atmosphere of a hospital is well captured here by its author, a former nurse. She makes the reader think about death and the people who deal with it on a daily basis. BOMC alternate; previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 11/1/91.
-Marilyn Jordan, Keiser Coll. Lib., Ft. Lauderdale, Fla.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Mass Market Paperback: 10 pages
• Publisher: Ivy Books (March 22, 1993)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0804111219
• ISBN-13: 978-0804111218
• Product Dimensions: 6.9 x 4.2 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,772,720 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Enjoyable, worth a read, although not Ms Heron's best, January 24, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Mercy (Mass Market Paperback)

This book is almost in two sections - The first half had me worried, with the attempts to put people's thoughts on paper. I found this confusing and boring and ended up skipping huge sections of these obscure ramblings. The scene-setting became a little tedious, as I wondered when the 'story' would start.

The second half of the book leaves out virtually all the character thought processes (although Walker's sequences continued to annoy me), and became a much better read which kept me hooked and keen to know the outcome.

Overall, I'd recommend reading the book, the several initially diverse storylines are well woven together.

If this is your first read of Echo Heron material - be aware that, in my opinion, all her others are much better than this one.

3.0 out of 5 stars First book is better, April 10, 2009

By 

laball "laball" (Albuquerque, NM United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Mercy (Mass Market Paperback)

Not as good as some of her other books but still an easy read - good for teens.

5.0 out of 5 stars another great book by echo!, April 1, 2009

By 

reann4239 (kentucky) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Mercy (Mass Market Paperback)

i am reading this book now, i just love the writer!, i am an emt so ,i do know when she talk about the medical aspect i can relate. you really get to know each person she writes about.yet another i have a hard time putting down.