Critics' Opinion:
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Published Oct 2012
304 pages
Genre: Literary Fiction
Publication Information
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.
"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.
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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