To The Last Page

We've arrived at book three-of-three in David Mark’s Sal Delaney series and there is one issue that surely every reader is eagerly looking to see resolved in Vale of Tears . Not will Wulf Hagman finally have his name cleared and his reputation restored in the realm of public opinion; not will Sal patch things up with her former lover who is still recovering from injury but maybe not recovered from his fling with Magda Quinn; not will we find out where Sal's twin brother Jarod has disappeared to and why; not even what is the story and his connection with Dagmara, who appears to be back to her old tricks as trailed at the end of book two ( Don't Say a Word ). Well, we expect answers to all those questions obviously, but paramount for me at least is will Magda Quinn get her comeuppance? So there are a few things to tie up, and obviously the concluding episode in a trilogy is not a good place to start reading the series - so reading a review of it makes even less sense - but an...

Despite a few superficial similarities, David Mark's Sal Delaney series is a very different beast from his DS McAvoy series. Sure, both are police detectives and both have very close relationships with their families and are very protective of them. Above all both series usually involve some pretty gruesome killings. Hey, it's David Mark, what do you expect? Any similarities end there however, or at least if there are similarities they are explored from different angles. McAvoy deals with crime that comes from unexpected places, threats from new areas and corrupt dealings in a changing world. As far as the Sal Delaney series goes - which is not a series as such as much as a three-parter, I believe - she's a Collision Investigation Officer in a rural Cumbrian backwater and the focus is more on how families and individuals are affected in the present by the crimes and injustices of the past. Which means there are lots of dark family and community secrets that continue to re...

When the Bough Breaks opens like a slowly unfolding explosion that leaves a heck of a mess to be cleared up. Characteristically for David Mark - especially if you are familiar with his DS McAvoy series - that literary detonation unfolds upon a scene of horror, blood, murder, mutilation, pain and suffering, but also incorporates the author's characteristic dark humour, littered with northern expressions, wit and cynicism. Mark can't help himself. He's not a show off, just a brilliant writer with an affection or perhaps affliction for delving into the darkest corners of the human psyche and expressing it in all its gory detail with the sensitivity and creativity of a poet. But you shouldn't let that put you off (not least because Mark can write better than I can find a way to express it), because there is a lot more to When the Bough Breaks when the dust settles and the blood coagulates. To set the scene for what is to come, Mark describes the abstract regaining of con...