"The Delivery" By Andrew Welsh-Huggins: Review/Giveaway

Review by KG Whitehurst

Andrew Welsh-Huggins, Shamus Award nominee and author of the Andy Hayes, PI series of novels as well as numerous well-received short stories, presents readers with the second action-packed thrill ride starring Mercury “Merc” Carter. A former postal inspector, Merc has gone freelance mailman, one who prides himself on never missing a delivery, come hell or high water.

(One can read The Delivery as a stand-alone, but reading The Mailman will explain the source of Merc’s obsessions.)

Of course, the Universe has to say, “Challenge accepted!” Karma is simply the consequences of choices, action, and non-actions, and those consequences can be good, bad, or indifferent.  

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Image Source Mysterious Press

In this convoluted tale, almost everybody makes bad choices and earns worse consequences. Even good deeds don’t go unpunished. Merc is driving in Rhode Island, listening to a Blue Jays-Nationals game on Sirius XM on the way to a delivery when he comes upon a car wreck and a badly injured woman. He must help her, or she will die. An aggressive thug then rolls up in a van, starts waving a gun at Merc, and demands Merc give him whatever the woman’s given Merc. Although confused, Merc forces him to leave and saves the woman. Only later does he discover that the woman slipped him an envelope containing a ruby ring and a business card with a number written on the back. When he calls the number, he discovers a set of parents in the throes of chronic sorrow who hire him to find their daughter Terri and return to her the ruby ring.

That’s going to be easier said than done because every step Merc takes in his attempt to find Terri draws him ever deeper into a sex, drugs, and robbery ring that’s led to three dead men. One of the dead is a shady IT guy with a porn and prostitution addiction; he worked for a pair of grifters, Randy and Monica Carmichael, who have their side hustles in addition to their main objective, a huge score of stolen data to be sold on the dark web. Merc, relentless in his pursuit of Terri, follows the clues and connects the sex and robbery ring to drug dealers to the grifters who use some bent ex-cops as rather high-priced muscle, to a wannabe gangster. As Merc says, it’s Family Dollar evil, but still evil.

The plot contains many twists and turns and plenty of action, and it almost gets away from the author. There could’ve been less action and deeper characterization, for most of the criminals aren’t as well fleshed out as one might wish. Or are they merely people with varying levels of incompetence and imagination, like so many real criminals are? This is fundamentally a noir story—a bunch of losers doing dangerous, stupid things all in an effort to find an easy way to East Street—cleaned up by a moral straight arrow who does the right thing, even when it gets in the way of his deliveries.

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You can click here to purchase this book.

K.G. Whitehurst holds a PhD in British history from the University of Virginia. K.G. has blogged about historical fiction at DIYMFA.com; she writes both historical and science fiction mysteries. She lives with her husband, three cats, and over 100 houseplants in Frederick, Maryland, USA.

Disclosure: This post contains links to an affiliate program, for which we receive a few cents if you make purchases. KRL also receives free copies of most of the books that it reviews, that are provided in exchange for an honest review of the book.