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Book Summary and Reviews of The Dark Winter by David Mark

The Dark Winter by David Mark

The Dark Winter

by David Mark

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  • Oct 2012, 304 pages
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About this book

Book Summary

What Ian Rankin is to Edinburgh, David Mark is to Hull, the northern England port as old and mysterious as its bordering sea. There, a series of suspicious deaths have captured the attention of Detective Sergeant Aector McAvoy, whose keen intelligence leads him to notice a pattern missed by others: All of the victims were at one time the sole survivors of tragedies large and small. As McAvoy strives to connect the cases to a single culprit, he is continually torn between his duties and his aching desire to spend more time with his wife and child - both of whom he adores. In McAvoy, Mark has created an unforgettable hero: a family guy obsessed with being a decent cop, a physically imposing man far more comfortable exploring databases than being gung-ho with his muscle.

The Dark Winter is the start of a police series that will rank among the classics of our time.

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Reviews

Media Reviews

"Starred Review. Outstanding...Readers will want to see more of the complicated McAvoy, who well deserves a sophisticated and disturbing plot." - Publisher's Weekly

"Starred Review. Mark's years as a Hull journalist, his descriptions of a blighted city "on the bones of its arse," and winter weather that ranges from merely dismal to brutal burnish an impressive debut. John Harvey readers should take note." - Booklist

"Fast moving and tightly plotted, with strong characterization and a likeable protagonist, this is an extremely promising debut." - The Guardian (UK)

"The Dark Winter is a promising debut by David Mark… certainly provides a trip to Hull and back." - The Telegraph (UK)

"Dark Winter is a fantastic debut of a police procedural series that takes place in northern England. Just as Detective Sergeant Aector McAvoy seems to be able to put himself in the mind of a killer, David Mark has developed his characters so completely that the reader can almost put himself in the mind of McAvoy as he is connecting dots that no one else even sees. McAvoy may be a gentle giant of a man but he is also determined to get at the truth." - Nancy McFarlane, Fiction Addiction

This information about The Dark Winter was first featured in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.

Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.

Reader Reviews

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Vivian Harrington

Dark Winter - Murders in the North of England
First time novelist David Mark hits a bull’s eye with his first effort, the intriguing police procedural, The Dark Winter, which introduces readers to Detective Sergeant Aector McAvoy. The action takes place in and around Hull in the north of England.
McAvoy is a gentle giant who loves his family, is not always taken seriously enough by his peers because he is more of an analyst than an action hero, but has an empathetic ability to put pieces of a complex puzzle together and get into the mind of a ruthless killer. What appear to be random murders of individuals with no discernible connection – an elderly man returning to the scene of a long ago sea disaster and a young girl at a church – become links to a greater plot of curious retribution involving sole survivors of tragic events.
This book is a quick read, well plotted, and kept me guessing until the very end. I loved the character development and will certainly look forward to the next installment in what promises to be a new series. This is the type of novel one sits down to read and just keeps on reading to see what transpires next. I would give it 4 ½ special dark chocolate kisses!

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Author Information

David Mark Author Biography

David Mark spent seven years as crime reporter for the Yorkshire Post and now writes full-time. The first novel in his DS McAvoy series, Dark Winter, was selected for the Harrogate New Blood panel (where he was Reader in Residence) and was a Richard & Judy pick and a Sunday Times bestseller. Dead Pretty was longlisted for the Crime Writers Association Gold Dagger in 2016. He lives in Northumberland with his family.

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