'Mercie Hillbrook lives a simple, quiet life working as a gas station attendant. Then her parents are killed. Her home is taken. The people responsible are excused for just doing their job. When an attempt to get justice her way lands her in trouble with the law, Mercie realises she still has something to lose: her own life. Then she finds reason to believe her parents were murdered… and she doesn’t care anymore.
'Alongside this roller-coaster of a novella, this book includes 4 very dark short stories.'
I came into Her Name is Mercie thinking that this was going to be a novella length story, and whilst the story is longer than a regular short story it isn't the only tale in this book, with several other shorter stories bundled in with it.
The main story, 'Her Name is Mercie', follows a young woman whose parents are shot to death by police during a routine traffic stop. It's chalked up to a tragic mistake by the police, but Mercie is determined to see the officers responsible to pay for their crimes. When this doesn't happen, and she learns that her parents home is being repossessed by the bank and she's been left with nothing, she snaps. Stealing the chief of police's car, she robs the bank with an air pistol, stealing thousands. However, when she's caught by police she's sent to prison and faces decades behind bars.
Despite having gone on a rampage, the reader can't help but feel sympathy for her, and you very quickly come to see her as a victim in all of this, one that you can really empathise with. I mean, who wouldn't want to go and get even in a situation like this? Over the course of the story Mercie gets the opportunity to get out of prison early on probation, but her problems just get worse from there, as she soon discovers that there was more to her parents murder than first appeared, and she's soon facing danger herself.
There's a lot to like about this story, and it manages to have enough twists and turns in the narrative to keep you guessing as to what might happen next. I didn't know if the story would be following Mercie in prison, whether she'd manage to clear her name, or find out what happened to her parents. But to be fair, I was enjoying the story enough that I'd have been happy with any of these eventualities, and was simply enjoying spending time with Mercie during her issues.
The second story in the book is called 'Re-Pete', and has a much more horror feel to it than the first. It follows Pete, a young boy who's adjusting to life with his mother and her new boyfriend following the tragic murder of his father, who was killed in front of him. This has resulted in Pete developing OCD.
Over the course of the book we discover how Pete manages his trauma, how he slowly seems to get over the pain of losing his father, and having to live with a man who is abusive and thuggish. The story ends with Pete repeating the events of his fathers murder, killing his mothers boyfriend, kind of implying that reenacting the crime has become his new compulsive routine. This was an interesting development, especially as the kid also seemed to be reproducing a grown man's voice during these violent acts, however, I'm not exactly sure how with story will sit with people who suffer with OCD.
The third story, 'Hunger', is probably the most interesting one in the book. It seems to follow a young woman who ends up stranded on her boat in the middle of the sea with her dog. I say 'seems', because this is a story that doesn't follow a traditional narrative structure, and things take on a very dreamlike structure as the narrator slips into a delirium state. The narrative shifts a lot in this story, and there were times where it didn't exactly feel clear exactly what was happening; but this wasn't a bad thing.
The story didn't hold my hand, it didn't make sure I was keeping up with it, and instead let me come to my own conclusions as to what was happening, or what things meant. It's a very intimate story, one that really lets you get into the head space of the lead character. It's the one that made me have to think and pay attention the most, and probably the one that I would go back to again and again.
'Libby's Hands' is a short little horror story set at Halloween. When Dina is told by her ailing grandmother to make sure that she decorates their old garden tree with hands for Halloween she chalks it up to her grandmother's failing mental health. However, she learns that this request is connected to a member of the family, Libby, who was supposedly hidden away as a child because of her disability.
When Halloween night rolls around and Dina hears that two children have gone missing she somehow knows that this must be connected, as she forgot to decorate the tree. Rushing out into the woods to investigate she falls victim to her killer family member. This story feels like there should definitely be more time given over to it, as I wanted to find out more about these characters and this situation, so I felt a little disappointed that there wasn't more; but then I guess when a short story leaves you wanting more that's a good thing.
The final story, and the shortest of them all, is 'Marsh Madness' which sees a lone man with a crossbow watching a small boy and his dog playing on the edge of some marshland close to a carnival ground. It's a strange little story, one that leaves the identity of the man and his motivations vague and undefined, leaving it down to the reader to interpret this how they see fit. Whilst I'm not normally against leaving some thing open to reader interpretation, I felt that the almost complete lack of information here was something of a poor thing, as just a little more information would have really gotten me invested in this story.
Overall I enjoyed Her Name Is Mercie, it proved to be an interesting and varied collection of stories and tales with a mixture of tones and themes that showed the versatility of crime writing, with some of the stories bordering on dark horror. Chris Roy has crafted some well thought out tales, and I'd definitely be interested in seeing what he does with a full novel.
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