The Dark Winter (Aector McAvoy Series #1)

Fabulous Debut

David Mark's first fiction novel is full of interesting characters. Sergeant McAvoy is down right endearing, principled and smart. Though he has had to earn respect in his new position, he has done so without compromising his integrity. The novel itself is a novel, complex story with many unexpected twists and turns - right up to the end. The reader will NOT figure out the ending ahead of time. I can hardly wait for Mark's next book about this thoughtful Sergeant. (Someone, please, PLEASE tell me another book is in process!) Don't pass up this great crime novel set in England.

16 out of 16 people found this review helpful.

The book opens with a prologue describing the making of a docume

The book opens with a prologue describing the making of a documentary about a tragedy in the late ‘70’s when a ferocious storm off the coast of Norway caused the loss of a brand new super-trawler which sank, killing all crew members save one, Fred Stein, who is now re-living the incident for the benefit of the cameras. En route to the spot where the ship sank, and seventy miles off the Icelandic coast, Stein vanishes.

In an impressive debut novel, David Mark introduces Detective Sergeant Aector McAvoy, a Scotsman working out of the Humberside Police CID Serious and Organized Crime Unit in Hull, in the East Riding area of Yorkshire. A dedicated policeman in his ‘30’s, and a shy man who [surprisingly] blushes easily, McAvoy thinks of himself as one of the ones who still gives a damn about the rules. His adored wife, the one who ‘keeps his heart safe for him,’ is heavily pregnant with their second child. As he sits with their four-year-old son in a café across the square from Holy Trinity Church, the city’s biggest and most historic church, two weeks before Christmas, a horrific scene unfolds before him: a fifteen-year-old black girl is stabbed to death on the altar steps. McAvoy momentarily has the perpetrator in his clutches before he escapes. It is discovered that the girl was the lone survivor of a massacre in Sierra Leone in which her entire family was murdered, hacked to death with a machete during the genocide which prevailed at that time.

There are other murders, with similarities which are overlooked by most the cops working the cases, but McAvoy does what he does best: follows his instincts, despite the problems that causes him with his superiors. The story swings back and forth between the various lines of investigation, and everything is tied up neatly by the end, with an unexpected and riveting denouement.

Notwithstanding the dark nature of the story, I was completely charmed by the writing. Driving along a roadway on a rainy day, McAvoy “fancies that a rabbit is streaking across the wet gravel to his rear, a moment of fur and exclamation mark of tail, glimpsed in the foggy glass.” A woman is described as having “short bobbed hair [which] looks as though it is drawn in pencil.”

Mr. Mark has created an intriguing protagonist, and I look forward to the sequel.

Recommended.

10 out of 16 people found this review helpful.

I have not read it yet, but in the review section the reviews do

I have not read it yet, but in the review section the reviews do no require a complete book report.  If I had read the 4-6 paragraphs of one review I would not need to buy the book.  Keep it short

4 out of 20 people found this review helpful.

An interesting story premise, the murders of persons who have na

An interesting story premise, the murders of persons who have narrowly escaped as sole survivors of a previous disaster in their lives. The protagonist, Sergeant McAvoy, seems a bit too deferential and unsure of himself to my taste, and a bit dense as a detective as well only being pointed in the right direction by another character and only belatedly recognizing that he himself fits the killer's victim profile. Still, a well-written tale and I'll be generous with my rating.

2 out of 2 people found this review helpful.

Good

Good one

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0 out of 1 people found this review helpful.

LE<_>AVE SIL<_>VERSTR<_>EAM ALO<_>NE!!!

0 out of 2 people found this review helpful.

Excellent!

Well written and intriguing English police mystery.

Tumblekit

Im hungry!!!!!!!!!!!!!

0 out of 2 people found this review helpful.

Dark

Yay!

0 out of 1 people found this review helpful.

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