Twist of Fate - D.L. Mark

As varied as they are, and as extremely evil as some of the villains he encounters are, you know where you stand with the dividing line between good and evil in David Mark's DS McAvoy thrillers. On the other hand, you don't really know what you will come up against when you open a book under the author's D.L. Mark moniker, one of his standalone works that often have an element of supernatural horror about them. Twist of Fate certainly promises madness and murder in its opening chapters, but there is or may be a more common element to what drives people to dark unspeakable acts of violence, against themselves as well as against others.

One thing perhaps is relationships; relationships that go wrong or were perhaps wrong to begin with. Someone has to pay somewhere down the line, perhaps not quite as immediately and violently as the ends that meet Sam and Marguerite in the prologue, the two of them having an illicit romp in a cemetery (well, that's just asking for trouble in a book with a supernatural horror edge, and sure enough…). But what drives a knife wielding maniac muttering words in an incomprehensible language to attack and kill passersby in a busy street in central London? And is it really as random as it seems?

Broken families and relationships aren't hard to find amongst those who become involved in Twist of Fate. There is DS Billy Dean and his high-flying senior police officer wife Fran, whose marriage is heading for divorce if Billy can push down the bitterness, anger and love he still feels for her and sign the papers. Love is complicated. It also complicates the life of consultant Catherine Cadjou and her brother Jethro, both caught up in the aforementioned London knife-wielding terrorist attack, both of whom come from a troubled family background. There's a lot of hurt and pain here of a different sort than we are accustomed to in regular David Mark thrillers.

Or so you might think. Mark's writing, even at its most extreme ends of crime, murder, violence and madness is always grounded in human emotions and behaviours. It's not difficult to see what drives the big Scottish detective DSMcAvoy to protect his wife, children, and society as a police officer, nor is it difficult to understand the underlying human problems that drive people to crime. DS Dean however is certainly no DS McAvoy, but then not everyone fits neatly into a package of what we would like to think are normal human sentiments. As we have seen from the author's own mental health memoir, Piece of Mind, who can even say what is normal?

Aside from its own qualities as a personal and deeply insightful look into that subject, Piece of Mind also seems to have had the benefit of dislodging something in the writer, if I may be so bold as to speculate on something so personal. Mark sees pain everywhere in Twist of Fate, and in some way holds out a lot of sympathy for all of them. He even has a homeless person offering concern and advice to DS Billy Dean, recognising in his demeanor one of those "people whose soul has just sort of fractured". It doesn't prevent him from showing Dean acting like an utter bastard, his barely suppressed rage, contempt, hatred and bitterness palpable on the page. It's fantastic writing, holding back nothing, allowing the reader to feel sympathy at the same time as wishing someone would punch him in the face. DS Dean would probably like that though.

Aside from the shocking incident early in the novel, there is considerably less bloody gore in Twist of Fate, but there is a lot of barely suppressed violence of a different sort from a number of deeply troubled, fractured and broken people here. It's still as taut as any David Mark thriller, at the same time offering the author's characteristic deeper underlying exploration into disturbing human behaviours and misbehaviours. And supernatural elements? Maybe, or maybe not. Maybe human beings are a lot more complicated than we imagine and, with a history of horrors and even the lives of the saints to draw upon, they are capable of imagining and enacting violent acts without the need of otherworldly assistance. With the assurance and fearlessness of someone who has been there, come through it and understands it, David Mark and indeed D L Mark is not afraid to go there.

Reading notes: Twist of Fate by D.L Mark is published by Head of Zeus under their Aries imprint. Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for the eBook proof for review. The book is published on the 2nd March 2023.