RATING: 3 STARS
(I received an ARC from the PUBLISHER via NETGALLEY)
(Review Not on Blog)

This is my first novel by Nancy Mehl, and I am undecided if I will read more. I found the characters were okay and the story line was predictable. This book is also tagged as a "Christian" book, and there are few mentions of God, but doesn't really have much to do wth the story or novel.

Fatal Frost
Defenders of Justice #1
By Nancy Mehl

Mercy Brennan has never been able to depend on anyone since her father walked out on them, on her. The only person to penetrate her icy wall of protection is her best friend Tally Williams who was her friend before her father ruined everything. Her former boyfriend Mark St Laurent was close until she broke it all off.

Mercy's biggest concern is doing her job well - which has been put on hold following an on-the-job shooting incident when the U.S. Marshals and the St. Louis Police Department attempted to arrest a known drug dealer/gang leader.

St. Louis has a problem the Cartel is moving in and they are joining forces with the local gangs to put law enforcement out of business permanently. And Mercy has been targeted! Keeping her safe and unaware of the situation has fallen to Mark and Tally. With a suspected mole within the midsts of the Marshals, need-to-know has become imperative. But when everyone is suspect who do you trust?

A dangerous storm moves in, stranding Mercy, Mark, and Tally in a remote location with no way of contacting anyone for assistance. Worse the very people that they are trying to hide from may have them in their sights. Can they survive long enough to discover who has betrayed them or will the Cartel win this battle? And with her life on the line can Mercy trust someone to be there for her when she most needs them? Or will she again be disappointed?

This is the first book in the Defenders of Justice series from Nancy Mehl and it will be interesting to see where the series goes from here. After this case, I think the US Marshals need to invest in a sat phone - though that would take away some of the suspense if contact was easy to establish.

Readers who enjoy Inspirational Suspense books will enjoy this book. One word of warning this is not the type of book to start in the evening if you have to work the next day - you'll want to read just one more chapter before putting it down - it will keep you up all night reading!

From the opening pages the author grabbed my attention. Her characters were strong and passionate. I loved watching the interactions between the three main characters, Mercy, Mark, and Tally. I especially appreciated the relationship between Tally and Mercy.

The action was intense. The author created an atmosphere that kept you guessing who could be trusted and who couldn’t. I will say early on I had guessed the identity of the mole. I kept wanting to scream at them “Can’t you see it!?!?”

The author also did a great job developing the characters in this story. Watching them grow and come to terms with difficult situations was touching. Great read!

Fans of Mehl’s Finding Sanctuary Series will enjoy this one even more. I felt like this first book of her new series raised the bar in her writing. If you are new to Mehl’s writing, but enjoy fast paced and intense action with just a little romance then you should enjoy this story.

Disclaimer: I received this book from the publisher, via Netgalley.com, but I was not required to leave a review. The opinions expressed here are strictly my own.

I found the premise of this book to be interesting but it kind of fell flat for me.

I loved the idea of a story about a female US Marshall but I found the story to just not pull me in like I wanted it to.

This was worth the read but it wasn't my favorite.

Fatal Frost
Nancy Mehl

Book Summary: Mehl Ramps Up the Suspense in This Brand-New U.S. Marshals Series- Mercy Brennan followed in her father's footsteps in a law enforcement career, but she has no interest in any other connection to him. A U.S. Marshal in St. Louis, Missouri, she's assigned to a joint task force with the St. Louis PD that puts her back into contact with her father and in the sights of St. Louis's most powerful gang. When the gang has reason to believe Mercy has possession of some highly sensitive and incriminating information, her boss assigns Mark St. Laurent--a Deputy U.S. Marshal and Mercy's ex-boyfriend--to get her out of town until they can guarantee her safety. Initially unaware of the danger she's in and uncomfortable working with Mark, Mercy's frustration escalates when she discovers the extent her boss and Mark have been keeping her in the dark. It isn't until a freak ice storm hits, stranding them at a remote location and out of contact with the district office, that the full severity of their situation becomes clear. As the storm worsens, the forces of nature combine with a deadly enemy closing in to put their lives at imminent risk. Can they survive long enough for help to arrive--if help is even coming at all?


Review: I really enjoyed this book. The twists and turns were fun. I also liked Mark the most. It was a well written book with a good struggle about faith. Mercy had a lot going on. She was someone who was struggling. Despite this she was empathetic at times, although she had a lot of baggage. The story was realistic in the fact that drug trafficking seems to be overwhelming. They way the ending went it was tense and things seemed to go well than the twists and turns began. Definitely a series to look forward to.
I would like to thank Net Galley and Bethany House for allowing me to read and review this book in return for a free copy and I was never asked to write a favorable review by anyone. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission's 16 CFR, Part 255: "Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.

Mercy Brennan followed in her father's footsteps in a law enforcement career, and even though she has no interest in contact with him a case puts her back into contact in the sights of St. Louis's most powerful gang.
When the gang has reason to believe Mercy has possession of some highly sensitive and incriminating information, her boss assigns Mark St. Laurent--a Deputy U.S. Marshal and Mercy's ex-boyfriend--to get her out of town until they can guarantee her safety.
I do not think of Nancy particularly as a writer of thrillers even though most of her books do solve some sort of a mystery. But a thriller this one was. And there was enough romance included for those who like that sort of thing. As Mercy was spirited out of town, it was clear in the book that she didn't know why. As the book progressed, there were obstacles along the way and as each was attacked, it was handled very capably by the author. I had reservations about the setting, St. Louis but it did seem to work in this case.
I thoroughly enjoyed the book and am looking forward to more books in the series. I received the book in exchange for the review.

[Note: This book was given free of charge by Baker Publishing. All thoughts and opinions are my own.]

Whether or not you like this novel depends a lot on the sort of expectations and standards you bring to this book. If you like competent genre fiction, in this case a police procedural with a hint of mystery and strong elements of divine providence, you will likely find this an enjoyable enough page turner. If you do not like your federal marshals to be people struggling with their commitments to God and family and career, or you are looking for a more literary work, this work will likely not be as enjoyable. In saying that this work is competent, it is important to note that the writing is acceptable and passable as a genre work, but not the sort of prose that is filled with great poetry or a multiplicity of layers and ambiguity and irony. If your standards going into the work are that you want a winter-themed opening volume to a series that introduces you to likeable and imperfect characters but which does not tax one with too much depth, you are likely the ideal audience for this book, and should probably check it out as part of your winter reading.

This particular novel, like many others of its genre and subgenre [1], features a strong emphasis on the active role of belief and faith in the lives of its characters. Some of the characters in this novel are believers in various stages of conversion and sanctification, and other believers are struggling with different understandings of God that come from different sources, and many come from broken homes and a background of poverty, from which they have climbed through divine providence and their own effort, something that many readers ought to be able to relate to. That said, despite the fact that this novel does have some strong elements of faith and a climax that may be considered to have been providential and perhaps even shading into the miraculous, the book is not character driven so much as it is plot driven. There are a lot of characters who die rather abruptly, and in such a fashion that they perish before they are fleshed out, and this includes the death of Mercy Brennan’s cop father, whose behavior in putting her unwittingly in danger drives the plot of this story along. The plot is both immensely simple and also convoluted, in that there are moles among the federal marshals, a concern about Mercy’s PTSD and her abilities to handle the rigors of her dangerous work, a trick that Mercy’s boss pulls with the support of her ex-partner (in multiple ways) Mark to try to spirit Mercy off to safety that goes horribly awry, and a complicated and multi-stage shootout at the most unsafe safe house ever between Mercy and her allies and a motley crew of baddies and not-so-baddies working for St. Louis gangs or Los Angeles-based Mexican drug cartels. Since this is the first novel of an intended series, it should not be a spoiler that most of the characters we care most about survive (although not all of them), or that there is a clear romantic undercurrent in this work that will likely only increase in future volumes.

For those who want to find fault with this novel, there is much to find fault with. The characters speak in clichés, the betrayals that mark this book are so frequent as to leave the reader in some doubt about loyalty and trust in ways that hinder our ability to truly have faith in the author being able to pull off her checklist of wants from the book, and some of the people in this story, including Mercy and Mark themselves, often seem to act in ways that are extremely foolish or overly dependent on intuition or suspicion. At its heart, though, if you care about Mercy and can identify with her, you will probably like this novel. Mercy is a tough woman from a bad background of a broken family that struggled with various addictions and mental illness, and she herself is recovering from injury and seems to have a bit of PTSD. Throughout the book she goes through the emotional and physical wringer and shows herself to be someone who has a hard time allowing others to get close, which is noted upon several times by herself and by others. Yet although the materials are here for a promising character, we don’t tend to see inside of her as much as we might want, largely because the prose of this book deals with psychological or interior realities in a remarkably ham-fisted way, without a great deal of subtlety or nuance. Yet if you are going to care about how this novel proceeds, it will likely be through identification with Mercy or her two closest associates Mark and Tully, all of whom show a great deal of longsuffering and persistence in dealing with the threat of death and torture.

[1] See, for example:

https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2016/02/18/book-review-burning-proof/

https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2014/04/30/book-review-the-advocate/

https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2013/06/08/book-review-dead-lawyers-tell-no-tales/

https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2014/07/08/book-review-murder-at-the-mikado/

https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2014/04/28/book-review-death-by-the-book/

Well, Nancy Mehl has gone and done it now! I’ve been in my happy place with her previous writings – what I call Mehl Mennonite Mysteries. If you haven’t read them (the Road to Kingdom and Finding Sanctuary series), then by all means get crack-a-lackin’! That being said, I’ve now entered a new phase thanks to Mehl: Crime and Suspense thrillers! And (shh)…I like it! Mehl’s latest novel, Fatal Frost (first in her Defenders of Justice series) will leave you on the edge of your seat, turning page after page late into the night!

Fatal Frost follows U.S. Marshal Mercy Brennan, who is recovering from being shot in the line of duty. Her cop-dad has never been a shining example in her life. So when he comes back around after her injury, she’s less than enthused. Little does she know, being around her dad now exposes her to a vicious gang…and she is in grave danger. Mercy’s boss tasks fellow Deputy U.S. Marshal (and ex-boyfriend), Mark. St. John with getting Mercy to safety…during one of the worst ice storms their area has ever seen. Much is in jeopardy – and who can be trusted is unclear. Will they make it? Read and find out!

I was given Fatal Frost in exchange for my honest review and I found it riveting. The characters are realistic, engaging, and worth cheering for. And the bad guys? Well, Nancy Mehl has done her job: They are complex…and you certainly do not want them to win! Mehl looks to be off to a great start with this new series, and I cannot wait for Book Two!

I really didn't enjoy this book as much as I thought I would. Patrons at the library where I work though seem to like it. It goes out regularly.

"Fatal Frost" is the first book in Nancy Mehl's brand-new series, Defenders of Justice and it is a great start to the series! This book introduces the reader to Mercy, whom is a U.S. Marshal and she has been working on tough cases and doing her job to protect others and bring justice to others. However, Mercy finds herself in danger and as she has been purposely kept in the dark by those protecting her, she is unaware of the extreme danger she is actually in.



Nancy does a great job with creating characters whom become so real that it is so easy to empathize with them.
Unfortunately, drugs have been such a big issue in today's society that this book was very realistic as well that it was easy to become part of the story and part of the drama. This book is a nice mix of romance and suspense and it is fast-paced, so that it was impossible to stop reading once I started! I am eager to read book #2 when that comes out to see where Nancy takes us!

"Fatal Frost" is the first book in the new series "Defenders of Justice" by Nancy Mehl. Mehl has steered off into a completely new direction. The new series though still in St Louis, centers around Mercy, a US Marshall, and her two crime fighting friends Tally and Mark. The plot is what if the police/black shootings were not so shall we say, black and white. What if it were a conspiracy to appear that way to keep both the public and the authorities attention else where while another party were taking control? Mercy and her men are about to find out.
I like that Mehl is trying something new. I think the new series is good. I don't especially like Mercy. She's a bit of a cold fish. I do like Tally and Mark. I received this book in exchange for a review from Bethany House.