Into the Woods

by D. L. Mark

Overview

A powerful psychological thriller by the Sunday Times bestselling author of The Guest House. For fans of Alex Michaelides and Ruth Ware.

Thirty years ago, three girls followed a stranger into the woods. Only two returned.

The surviving pair have never been able to remember what happened or what the fate of the third girl was. Local rumours in the Lake District talk of hippies and drugs and mystic rituals, but no one has learned the truth.

This story is just what Rowan Blake needs. He's in debt, his journalistic career is in tatters – as well as his damaged body – and he's retreated to the Lake District to write.

Yet even Rowan isn't prepared for the evil he is about to unearth, for the secrets that have been buried in that wood for far too long...

Reviewers on David Mark:

'Mark is an extraordinary talent – one of the best in the business. I adore how he writes' M.W. Craven

'Dark, compelling crime writing of the highest order' Daily Mail

'Breathtaking' Peter May

'A wonderfully descriptive writer' Peter James

'Exceptional... Mark is writing at the top of his game' Publishers Weekly

'A master of the dark psychological thriller' Kirkus

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781800246362
Publisher:	Bloomsbury USA
Publication date:	01/01/2022
Pages:	448
Product dimensions:	5.08(w) x 7.79(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

David Mark spent more than fifteen years as a journalist, including seven years as a crime reporter with the Yorkshire Post. His writing is heavily influenced by the court cases he covered: the defeatist and jaded police officers; the competent and incompetent investigators; the inertia of the justice system and the sheer raw grief of those touched by savagery and tragedy. He writes psychological suspense thrillers and historical novels, plus the DS McAvoy series.

Follow David Mark at @davidmarkwriter www.davidmarkwriter.co.uk

David Mark spent more than fifteen years as a journalist, including seven years as a crime reporter with the Yorkshire Post. His writing is heavily influenced by the court cases he covered: the defeatist and jaded police officers; the competent and incompetent investigators; the inertia of the justice system and the sheer raw grief of those touched by savagery and tragedy. He writes psychological suspense thrillers and historical novels, plus the DS McAvoy series.

Follow David Mark at @davidmarkwriter www.davidmarkwriter.co.uk

Read an Excerpt

"Eve listens. Files the information away. Looks up at the smudge of grey clouds and can’t help wondering whether she could ever have tolerated a life like this. She reckons she could probably still play the role of farmer’s wife – she has the strong forearms and the round, red cheeks that she associates with the cartoon caricature version of the role. She just isn’t sure about the making jam and the beating eggs and making packed lunches for some taciturn husband. Can’t see herself rubbing blood and afterbirth off a new lamb with a fistful of damp straw. Can’t imagine tweezing white hairs from the black face of a champion tup. She’d rather just get on with what she’s good at. Get on with being a copper; a thief-taker.

Not that her single-mindedness hasn’t cost her dear. Her last three lovers have all told her she’s too much like hard work. She’s felt sorrow at the end of each relationship but she has never felt regret. She’s twenty-nine, a detective sergeant, a respected copper with a record that shows more commendations than black marks. She had to move to this little corner of England to take a step up the career ladder but she doesn’t view it as a sacrifice. She’s learning to love it here, in this dull brown blob in the top left-hand corner of the map. It’s only forty miles from one side to the other but the variety is such that on any given day she could be called to locations as different in character as the sun and the moon.

Cottages; castles; urban sink estates glaring out into the sea. She’d thought that all mountains looked the same. Now she feels able to recognise the different fells from description alone. She favours the wilder lands; the rugged mountaintops with their serrated edges and hidden hazards; sudden drops and concealed mineshafts; waterfalls that pound the rocks with a cold, endless fury.

She’s starting to fit in”

Editorial Reviews

'A lovely and atmospheric read, filled with magical moments' Samantha Tonge, author of The Winter We Met” —Richard Madeley, Richard and Judy Book Club, on Dark Winter

From the Publisher