“Dark Winter” by David Mark – Book Review

Just had to share this new author!

“Dark Winter” by David Mark, is a debut novel and the first in a series! A British police procedural mystery set in Hull, a port city in North Eastern England, this series features a protagonist who has the character to see us through several books…. I only hope he does.
Aector McAvoy (Hector) is a transplanted Scot, a family man with a pregnant wife and a young son. He is larger than life, both in physical size and moral character. Blessed with a fine tuned acuity for noticing connections between events, he is excellent at his job. Set just a few weeks before Christmas, the novel fairly brims with atmosphere.

The summary from Penguin.com (USA) reads:
“A teenage girl adopted from Sierra Leone is chopped down with a machete in front of the entire congregation. A retired trawlerman is found dead at the scene of a tragedy he escaped, the only survivor, forty years ago. An ugly fire rages in a working-class neighborhood, and when the flames die away, a body is discovered, burned beyond recognition.

Detective Sergeant Aector McAvoy is sure there is a connection between these crimes, but his fellow officers are not convinced—they would rather get a quick arrest than bother themselves with finding the true killer. Torn between his police duties and his aching desire to spend more time with his pregnant wife and young son, McAvoy is an unlikely hero: a family man more obsessed with being a decent cop, a physically imposing man far more comfortable exploring databases that being gung-ho with his muscle. Compelled by his keen sense of justice, McAvoy decides to strike out alone—but in the depths of the dark winter, on the hunt for a murderer, it’s difficult to forget what happened the last time he found himself on the wrong side of a killer’s blade…”

The author, David Mark, though a debut novelist, is a seasoned journalist, so he is well versed in writing and does it superbly. Highly recommended!