Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    The Quality of Mercy
    The Quality of Mercy
    The Quality of Mercy
    Ebook60 pages51 minutes

    The Quality of Mercy

    By J.S. Cook

    ()

    Read preview

    About this ebook

    The year is 1934, and disgraced federal agent Nathan Devereaux is escorting convicted felon John Banks to visit his dying mother. Banks is despondent, miserably ill with a heavy cold, and unenthusiastic about traveling by plane. It isn't a responsibility Devereaux wants, but something about the prisoner’s plight resonates with him.

    Devereaux charters a plane to Wisconsin, hoping to get there before Banks's mother breathes her last. But a routine journey swiftly turns into a sojourn in hell when a violent winter storm forces the plane miles off course, and Banks’s seemingly bad cold turns out to be diphtheria.

    Stranded many miles from the destination, Devereaux must find a way to save Banks's life without compromising the mission. Like Banks, Devereaux has secrets of his own, and the scope and purpose of his mission don't quite square with the stories he tells. Making matters worse, he is the only one standing between Banks and certain death, but even a federal agent can do only so much—especially an agent with blood on his hands.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherDreamspinner Press
    Release dateJan 14, 2015
    ISBN9781632163004
    The Quality of Mercy
    Author

    J.S. Cook

    J.S. Cook grew up surrounded by the wild North Atlantic Ocean in a small fishing village on the coast of Newfoundland. An avid lover of both the sea and the outdoors, she was powerfully seduced by the lure of this rugged, untamed landscape. This love of her island heritage and its deeply Irish culture led her to create The Kildevil Cove Murder Mysteries series, police procedurals that feature career detective Deiniol Quirke and his partner, millionaire property developer Tadhg Heaney.  Her interest in police procedurals was recently reignited by an opportunity to work with a police profiler from the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, editing two forensic field manuals to be used by LA County law enforcement and as part of the curriculum at the California Institute of Criminal Investigation. She maintains an avid interest in forensics and often designs and conducts her own forensic experiments, including a body farm in her backyard.  Reviewers have called her past work “… strong, solid detective fiction… with a depth and complexity of plot and characters….”  When she isn’t writing, J.S. Cook teaches communications and creative writing at the College of the North Atlantic. She makes her home in St. John’s with her husband Paul and her two furkids: Juniper, a border terrier, and Riley, a chiweenie.  

    Read more from J.S. Cook

    Related to The Quality of Mercy

    Related ebooks

    LGBTQIA+ Romance For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      Equinox

      May 18, 2022

      In this strange world, where identities change with the rising and setting of the sun, supernatural forces are at work – and they’re causing trouble… St Leonars prison was an appropriately imposing building. It rose out of the surrounding shacks and

      5 min read

    • Article

      A BUMP In The Night

      Oct 6, 2021

      A BUMP In The Night
      3 min read

    • Article

      Housewarming

      Dec 1, 2022

      DENNIS MCFARLAND’S most recent novel is Nostalgia. His stories have appeared in The New Yorker, Best American Short Stories, and the Scholar, among other places. When Kevin arrived at the top floor and stepped into a long dark hallway, he couldn’t re

      21 min read

    • Article

      Wow, What A Day

      Aug 6, 2020

      Wow, What A Day
      10 min read

    • Article

      Diary of Remorse

      Sep 6, 2022

      I was plagued by remorse, but my remorse seemed inspired by insignificant dumb things—things not really worthy of bona fide remorse. That didn’t make it any less painful or plague-worthy, as I was still riddled with disgrace on a minute-by-minute bas

      20 min read

    • Article

      On Good Authority

      May 10, 2022

      Eufala, Alabama 02/19/2053 “Dr. Totter, may I speak with you about the security measures for your trip?” Zane, bearded, muscular, was poised and looming over her, and she fought the urge to take a step backward. Vivian Totter looked over her shoulder

      25 min read

    • Article

      Tom Cunliffe

      Oct 28, 2022

      Tom Cunliffe
      5 min read

    • Article

      Tom Cunliffe

      Oct 28, 2022

      Tom Cunliffe
      5 min read

    • Article

      The Submerged

      Dec 1, 2021

      When I was 14, I lost my virginity to David Flower, the future congressman. My parents had moved us, the summer before, from Cambridge to West Virginia. They were junior co-hires in public health at WVU, but they wanted to live way out in the country

      24 min read

    • Article

      Call And They Will Come

      Dec 7, 2022

      Call And They Will Come
      5 min read

    • Article

      Chronicles of NOELLA BRY

      Nov 10, 2023

      Chronicles of NOELLA BRY
      3 min read

    • Article

      Winter Falls

      Aug 7, 2022

      Winter Falls
      2 min read

    • Article

      Fiction: The Star Dunes

      Oct 17, 2020

      Fiction: The Star Dunes
      5 min read

    • Article

      The Weaker Sister: When we have to evacuate Earth, only the strong will survive.

      Oct 13, 2016

      What on earth was mine? Our underground domicile’s concrete walls mapped with veins of mold and ice, the drip-drip-drip of dirty melt from the ceiling into four rusty pots, the gray shapes the water made when we flung it out against the frozen drifts

      25 min read

    • Article

      Mind A Lowing

      Jan 27, 2021

      Mind A Lowing
      5 min read

    • Article

      Making Plans

      Jun 7, 2022

      Making Plans
      6 min read

    • Article

      They Got Their Show

      Aug 10, 2021

      It is midnight in Ponderosa and Nick Velasquez can’t sleep. The public doesn’t want him to sleep. It’s been like this ever since it hit all the big streaming platforms. The viewers stay up bingeing and he… well, he has been bingeing in his own way. W

      14 min read

    • Article

      Black Tie – Worse Than The Black Death

      Dec 14, 2022

      It came as a shock recently to discover, in some long-abandoned cranny of this ravaged psyche, a residue of what felt like self-respect. Any epsilon male sunk deep into middle age, and deeper into irrelevance, has no business caring what others think

      3 min read

    • Article

      Novelist Caleb Azumah Nelson: ‘Why Would You Put A Ceiling On Anyone?’

      Apr 30, 2023

      Chaotic conditions in Peckham: brolly-ruining wind, sudden showers, one of those afternoons when the weather apps show every symbol from sunshine to lightning and leave you to figure it out. Caleb Azumah Nelson, the 29-year-old author and artist whos

      11 min read

    • Article

      The Penguin Whisperer

      Jan 1, 2023

      The Penguin Whisperer
      6 min read

    • Article

      The Room Above

      Sep 10, 2021

      For a moment, he had no thoughts. Just…observations… A blue hole. No – a window… Crystalline sky swelling through a big square gap in the otherwise plain white wall. He blinked. Was that sky out there? What was in here? Where was ‘here’? He blinked s

      29 min read

    • Article

      Elixir Of The Incas

      May 1, 2023

      Elixir Of The Incas
      9 min read

    • Article

      Thieves

      Apr 11, 2018

      Thieves
      25 min read

    Related categories

    Reviews for The Quality of Mercy

    0 ratings

    0 ratings0 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

      Book preview

      The Quality of Mercy - J.S. Cook

      The quality of mercy is not strained.

      It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven

      Upon the place beneath. It is twice blessed:

      It blesseth him that gives and him that takes.

      —William Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice

      The Quality of Mercy

      Joliet Correctional Facility: January, 1934

      THE INTERIOR of the prison at Joliet was as depressing as always and, on this late-January afternoon, as cold as hell. Nathan Devereaux felt like something that had been scraped off the soles of somebody’s shoes, and his normally stoic disposition was considerably altered by frustration and a cold anger.

      He showed his badge and identification to the man behind the desk. I’m here to take custody of the prisoner.

      Johnnie Banks? The man behind the desk struggled with late middle age, was bald and portly, and appeared to dislike his job a great deal. This ID is expired, son.

      Devereaux did his best to smile. Well, hell’s bells, so it is. He scratched the back of his neck, stalling for time. I do have the current one… bet I left it in the car. ’Course I’ll have to go on up to the parking lot to get it…. That meant John Banks would have to wait while he went to fetch it. Well, Devereaux reasoned, he’d already waited four and a half years.

      Don’t bother. The guard waved a hand like somebody shooing flies. He’s down there. Jess’ll take you. He nodded at a tall black man standing by the wall, a veritable colossus who stood nearly seven feet tall and must have weighed three hundred pounds.

      Devereaux followed Jess’s enormous back into a chilly corridor lined with cells, most of which were open and empty, even at this strange and unusual hour. The cell at the end of the hallway held Devereaux’s interest. Unlike the others, this cell wasn’t open, nor was it empty. In the far corner of the single bunk, a man sat hunched over and leaning against the wall. He appeared to be asleep, his chin resting on his chest.

      John Banks? Devereaux didn’t wait for an answer. I’m Nathan Devereaux. I’ve been instructed to escort you north to Mocksville, Wisconsin, where you will visit with family members for a period of two hours, after which I am instructed to return you to this institution. Do you understand?

      The man raised his head, nodded once, and returned to huddling against the wall.

      Jess unlocked the cell and said, Come on, now, get up.

      The man shuffled forward into the light, and Devereaux could see he was dark-haired and dark-eyed, pale, with a tightly groomed mustache and a scar down one side of his face. He was dressed simply, in civilian garb: dark pants, white shirt, dark waistcoat. Had he been standing erect, he might have been about Devereaux’s own height, but he stood slumped before them, arms wrapped around himself. He appeared to be shivering. When prompted, he held his hands out obediently for Jess to cuff him.

      Does the prisoner have no overcoat? Devereaux asked.

      Jess raised his big shoulders and let them drop. No, sir.

      But the prisoner is being escorted three hundred fifty miles north. Devereaux’s frustration threatened to choke him. Why has he no overcoat, no hat? He leaned closer and peered at Banks. Is this man ill?

      Yes, sir, Jess replied.

      Devereaux’s fists clenched. And why has no one taken him to the infirmary?

      I wouldn’t go. Banks’s voice was raw, husky, like he’d spent the night screaming into some dark abyss. He turned aside and coughed violently—so violently that Devereaux thought he might pass out. They tried to make me. He raised his head, and for a moment, his gaze and Devereaux’s met and held.

      All the air seemed to go out of Devereaux’s lungs as he stood there; the whole of his awareness suspended in those dark eyes. You poor son of a bitch, he thought. It seemed to slide through his mind like a half-forgotten melody. You poor son of a bitch. All alone, in the hell of Joliet, cold and sick, intent on seeing your mother, who is dying.

      Consider it a mission of mercy.

      Enjoying the preview?
      Page 1 of 1