Taking Pity

Starred review from May 25, 2015
In Mark’s excellent fourth novel featuring Det. Sgt. Aector McAvoy of the Humberside Police, McAvoy’s boss, Det. Supt. Trish Pharaoh, feels the pressure from London to eliminate the powerful Headhunters, the group responsible for the attack in 2014’s Sorrow Bound that injured McAvoy’s wife and daughter and forced them into hiding. Meanwhile, McAvoy is tasked with reviewing a decades-old case the Home Office is concerned could be appealed. Since 1966 it’s been assumed that Peter Coles, considered mentally unfit for trial, murdered four members of the Winn family in cold blood on their farm; Coles confessed and has been locked away in psychiatric institutions. After sifting through the minimal evidence, McAvoy notices enough discrepancies to question the official version. McAvoy and Pharaoh make unsettling connections between the still-lethal 81-year-old Francis Nock, who’s one of the area’s last criminals to rebuff the Headhunters, and the Winn murders. Mark weaves a complicated web of deception, betrayal, and violence as the action builds to a stunning conclusion. Agent: Oli Munson, A.M. Heath (U.K.).

Starred review from May 1, 2015
The Serious and Organized Crime Unit battles a vast criminal organization. Everyone in Detective Superintendent Trish Pharaoh's meeting in London is abuzz over the Headhunters, which aims to take control of all criminal activities now being led by smaller regional groups. So far they've succeeded in making offers no crime boss could refuse-and any who did refuse died horrible deaths. But the Headhunters haven't been able to convince 81-year-old Francis Nock and his enforcer, Raymond Mahon, who've run a criminal enterprise in the Hull area since before most of the upstarts were born. Pharaoh is most concerned about the welfare of her friend DS Aector McAvoy, who's living in a small room with his son. His wife, Roisin, and their baby daughter have been hidden away ever since their house was blown up and Aector was attacked and left for dead by someone with a major grudge, perhaps an angry drug dealer. At the conference, Pharaoh is approached by a woman from the Home Office who insists she get McAvoy, still on sick leave and lost without Roisin, to take a job investigating a multiple murder case from 50 years earlier. Originally declared insane, the presumed killer is now considered fit for trial, and McAvoy is supposed to look into the case and see if there's enough evidence to go ahead. Hardworking and honest, McAvoy is still widely hated by some of his fellow police officers for bringing down a crooked but popular copper. He soon learns that not only has much of the decades-old evidence vanished, but there's a chance someone else committed the crime. As the Headhunters fight for dominance with help from crooked cops, Pharaoh and McAvoy discover almost too late that their cases are intertwined and more than one villain is eager to see them both dead. Mark's fourth (Sorrow Bound, 2014, etc.) is a dark, bloody, twisting tale of love, hate, and greed you can't put down.

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May 15, 2015
In the view of his guv, Trish Pharaoh, DS Aector McAvoy is broken. His home has been bombed, and Aector and his young son are living in a shabby hotel. His wife, Roisin, and baby daughter, Lilah, are in witness protection because the gang that bombed their home remains determined to kill Roisin. To ease Aector back into police work, Pharaoh assigns him to review the case files on a savage multiple murder that occurred 50 years before, even though her Serious and Organized Crime Unit (SOCU) is getting nowhere in crushing the Headhunters, a corporatized gang that is seizing control of longstanding criminal gangs that are mired in what the Headhunters see as outmoded petty territorialism. But the body count in Hull is rising dramatically, and SOCU believes the Headhunters are splintering, while Aector is intuiting that the historic murders are not at all what they seemed. Mark again delivers (following Sorrow Bound, 2014) a wonderfully atmospheric portrait of the storm-lashed, knackered old city of Hull; a labyrinthine plot; vividly drawn coppers and criminals; and a surfeit of spectacular, up-close-and-personal violence. As Pharaoh notes, It's never dull in Hull. (Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2015, American Library Association.)

February 1, 2015

Det. Sgt. Aector McAvoy is recovering from tragedy, living with his young son in a flat near the burnt skeleton of his old home and easing back into work with what should be a straightforward investigation of suspected police wrongdoing. But it leads him to some very bad guys. Fourth in a dark and much-starred series.

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