The Mystery of Mercy Close

Helen Walsh is a private investigator. Luckily Helen is a little better at solving crimes as she sucks when it comes to taking care of her personal life. Helen finds herself moving back in with her parents. Helen does have a boyfriend but his children don’t like her much.


Helen gets a new case. She is asked to locate the missing Wayne Diffney from the band, Laddz. There is just one slight catch. The client hiring Helen is her ex, Jay.

This is my first introduction to Marian Keyes and the Walsh Sisters. I have to say that I was not connecting with Helen. She seemed too timid and wish-washy. For example when Helen calls back her boyfriend, Artie, he asks Helen “Listen, are you ok, baby?” Helen responds “What do you mean?” Had be noticed how weird I was becoming? Also I found Helen to be a little hypocritical. Just prior to this conversation, Helen was upset because she was talking to someone else and he was calling her “hon”. She was talking to herself afterwards about how she did not want the person to call her hon, however Helen finds it ok that Artie calls her “baby”. Now I understand this could just be due to the circumstances that Artie is Helen’s boyfriend and can get away with calling her terms of endearment but still I did find it a little odd that Helen did not call Artie out on it. Also, I say this because Helen was starting to have feelings again for her ex-boyfriend. I could not get past Helen.

If you took her out of the equation, then this would have been a better book. I found the secondary characters more interesting.