Borrowed Time

May 4, 2020
In this formulaic thriller from Mark (A Rush of Blood), Portsmouth, England, resident Adam Nunn, who was adopted as a baby and doesn’t know who his birth parents were, hires PI Larry Paris to help him find out. When Paris’s corpse is found with a huge hole in his skull in an area known as Dead Man’s Vale, because it was once a popular place for mobsters to dump their victims, Nunn, who has a history of violence, becomes a person of interest for a newly created UK police unit modeled on the FBI. The hot-tempered Nunn, who refuses to cooperate, gets locked up for the murder. Meanwhile, an enforcer named Irons, “a monstrous thing; all scars and twisted skin, as if half his face is made from cold spaghetti and cheap leather,” fears the m.o. of Paris’s murder is meant to frame his employers, the Jardine crime family, and undertakes his own investigation into the killing. Readers should be prepared for predictable plot twists and stock characters, notably Irons, who fits the familiar type of the brutal killer who still has a heart. Those seeking novelty will be disappointed. Agent: Oli Munson, A.M. Heath (U.K.).

May 1, 2020
A man searching for his birthparents is drawn into a world of confusion and horror. At 36, Adam Nunn is still looking for his place in life. Clever and attractive, he's drifted since college. He lives with his girlfriend, Zara, and her children, but he also has a child of his own with Grace Senoy, a pal from college. When Adam's father, who has dementia, tells him he was adopted and his mother refuses to talk about it, he hires private investigator Larry Paris to dig up the truth. When the PI turns up dead in a pond known as a dumping ground for mob hits in the 1970s, Adam is arrested. With Grace's help, he sets out to work the case on his own, following a path that leads to the infamous crime family of Francis Jardine. Now that the crime lord is close to death, his empire is run by his daughter, Alison, with help from Irons, a loyal family servant so badly disfigured that most people flinch when they see him. After getting beaten up by Alison's son and rescued by Irons, Adam meets Alison and learns about his parentage: He's the son of Alison's dearly loved friend Pamela, who was raped when they were 15, gave birth to Adam, and then killed herself. Irons, who loved Pamela, went to prison for killing her attacker. But did he get the right man? A wild, brutal, fascinating tale of death, betrayal, and love.

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May 15, 2020
The latest from Mark, former crime reporter for the Yorkshire Post and author of the DS Aector McAvoy series and two stand-alones, is part police procedural and part psychological-suspense tale. Mark uses his Essex setting to maximum effect, contrasting what is known as Constable country (after landscape painter John Constable) with the bleak reality of Dedham Vale, on the Essex-Suffolk border, in the '60s and '70s, when it served as the informal burial place for victims in the organized-crime wars of that time. A new body is found in 2007 with apparently a National Insurance number scrawled on its hand. The body is that of a private investigator, but the number belongs to Adam Nunn, who had hired the PI to find his birth parents. As the cops investigate Nunn, the prime suspect, Nunn must work to find the real killers. He's fighting on all fronts, examining his past and escaping the clutches of police and criminals alike. Gripping from start to finish.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2020, American Library Association.)