Original Skin (Detective Sergeant McAvoy)
Mark’s atmospheric debut novel (The Dark Winter, 2012) introduced Detective Sergeant Aector McAvoy and the economically depressed city of Hull, England. The massive Scot is a fine copper, yet he sorely lacks self-confidence. His “guv,” smart, earthy Detective Superintendent Trish Pharoah, knows that her job is to marshal the “egos and neuroses” of the Serious and Organized Crime Unit, and Aector is her biggest challenge. The plot of Original Skin mixes a spectacular spike in violence by a drug gang, city and police politics, “travelers,” and murder in the world of “swingers and doggers” who connect online and then meet for anonymous, illicit sex. The many-tentacled plot is held together by the large cast of complex, multidimensional characters, including a detective at the end of his psychological rope; the ambitious head of the civilian police commission, who has an eye on a seat in Parliament; and a young, tattooed swinger grieving the loss of her only friend. Mark’s gift for developing characters is matched by his evocative portrait of downtrodden, rain-swept Hull. --Thomas Gaughan