When his business card turns up on the bodies of two dead homeless men, Stephen Brown, the Director of Social Services at the Salvation Army in Grand Island, Nebraska, falls under suspicion of the Chief Investigator, Laqueta Ellison. The fact that each card contains a message to the deceased raises the stakes. Soon more bodies are found. Is it suicide? Murder? Some questions must be answered before Stephen Brown and Laqueta Ellison can identify the killer, if there is only one, and, prevent further deaths. An unidentified boy with a torn anus, an eighteen-year-old female incest/prostitution victim, a quadriplegic living in the trees despite being wheelchair bound, a developmentally disabled Native American, and a Mexican family fleeing La Linea. Why are Grand Island's most vulnerable dying violently? A Certain Mercy draws the reader into the world of America's homeless, their stories, and the legal and social traps of trying to win them recognition and justice. A Certain Mercy is the first in a series of five books designed to draw readers into the lives of people behind society's labels by placing them in suspense filled story lines. The other books in the series are tentatively titled: A Mercy Withheld, A Mercy Withdrawn, A Mercy Extended, and Mercy Free.