Poco antes de Navidad, un anciano es hallado muerto en el mar. En una iglesia, una muchacha es acuchillada con un machete. Un drogadicto es abrasado en un incendio en un barrio de viviendas de protección oficial. El sargento McAvoy, un fornido policía de problemático pasado, y que es mirado con recelo por el resto de sus compañeros debido a su inquebrantable sentido del deber, será el único capaz de encontrar la conexión entre estos tres crímenes y el asesino de aterradores ojos azules que oculta su rostro tras un pasamontañas negro...

meh. As others have said predictable and in some spots slow paced.

The Dark Winter by David Mark is actually the first book in his DS Aector McAvoy series, and in this first outing McAvoy is part of the team that is investigating a series of suspicious deaths that have the Northern English city of Hull on high alert. When McAvoy realizes that these murders are the work of one person, they realize they are on the trail of a serial killer who targets previous victims and them kills them in the way they were originally attacked.

This book is also the introduction to Det. Sgt. McAvoy who is struggling professionally after a difficult year that included his reporting on a group of corrupt cops. He has a strong belief in justice and this has made him a bit of an outsider with the other police officers. He does however, have a very good relationship with his wife and they are expecting a second child, to go along with their 4 year old son.

I had quite mixed feelings about this book, finding it rather slow moving and considering the subject matter, not particularly suspenseful. I did think the writing was quite good but the self-doubt of the main character was a bit off-putting and the resolution to the story felt rushed. Currently I am far more invested in many of the other series that I am reading so at this point I am not planning on continuing on with this series. ( )

I’m always a little dubious when I’m told that ‘only’ one person can join the dots.

What, exactly, makes DS Aector McAvoy so special that he is the only police officer able to see a connection between three seemingly disparate murders? It seems to be his conscience and a determination, sadly not shared by all his fellow officers, to catch the actual killer, rather than the most likely suspect. I’m fairly sure this shouldn’t make him such an unusual police officer…but apparently it does David Marks’ vision of policing in Hull.

== What’s it about? ==

A man who nearly died 40 years ago dies in eerily similar circumstances to his original near-death incident. Could this be a meaningful suicide perpetrated by a guilty survivor? Meanwhile a young girl is brutally murdered inside a busy church and it quickly transpires that she survived a similar attack as a baby. Could this be a bizarre coincidence? Well, this is a crime novel, so I think you can guess the answer to those two questions. When another survivor dies in eerily similar circumstances to those he had previously escaped, it appears that McAvoy’s bosses may finally be ready to listen to him. Of course, McAvoy is a sole survivor himself, so perhaps he won’t need to hunt too hard for the killer…

== What’s it like? ==

Emotional. Reliant on coincidence and instinct. Violent. (One victim has her rapist’s initials carved into her genitalia.)

McAvoy just happens to be the man dispatched to inform the ex naval officer’s sister that his disappearance is now a death (his superiors like to keep him out of the way as punishment for ‘grassing’ on a senior officer last year); he also just happens to be first on the scene when the girl is attacked in the church and is struck by the killer as a result. This is how he is able to start making links between the two cases and his own experiences, and the story continues in much the same vein

If you don’t mind a few doses of coincidence then you’re likely to enjoy the intriguing premise. Who would want to kill sole survivors of terrible events? What possible motivation could they have? I actually really liked the final answer to this, though it is arguably as far-fetched as, well, everything else that happens in the story.

While McAvoy attempts to single-handedly manage the cases in the way he feels they should be handled, he brushes up against new boss, ‘Pharaoh’, in a unit rife with political tensions and ripe for backstabbing. Quite why there has to be sexual tension introduced between the characters I don’t know, especially since McAvoy practically worships his young wife and the proper storyline has to take a break at one point so they can have a baby related trauma. Is this frisson between the officers meant to emphasise the apparently corrupt / corrupting nature of the Hull police force or are we just to assume once again that a handsome man and powerful woman can’t work together without contemplating how much they might enjoy each other naked? Either way, it irritated me.

== Final thoughts ==

This is a deeply emotional story. McAvoy wrestles with his conscience, his colleagues and his inability to always be there for his precious family (he abandons his son at a cafe to sprint to the murder at the church without a second thought) and even the killer is racked with emotion mid and post-kill. (‘There were tears in his eyes’, McAvoy notes, with the ‘sudden sense’ that this is important.) The resolution is interesting, though the final chapter is unnecessary, and if you like your crime thrillers violent and mildly philosophical, then this one’s for you. ( )

I really liked 'The Dark Winter', at least the first 90% or so of it. Well-written, an intricate plot, an interesting location, good character development, and the good guys win- literally, all the things I look for when experiencing a new author for the first time. David Mark is definitely a writer I want to see more from in the future.

The main characters, especially McAvoy (especially) and Pharoah were very well done. Good rapport between them, plus a smattering of sexual tension helped move the story forward whenever it felt like the investigation was slowing down. Without getting into the specifics of the plot, my favorite aspect of this book was McAvoy's making the logical leaps that often sound pretty straightforward on the page but in the real world are more difficult to make in real time.

My only problem with the story, and I have this same issue whenever it happens in a book or on the screen, is when a great procedural gets to a point where something 'magical' or just plain lucky happens that accelerates the arc of the story. Without spoiling the plot, there's a point toward the end where McAvoy literally stumbles into something that probably would have been resolved if the procedural had just continued. It may have reduced the number of pages required to reach a similar point, but seemed really unlikely to have actually occurred.

All-in-all, a really good read by a new author. ( )