Scorched Earth by David Mark

A few days ago I posted a review of David Mark’s Cruel Mercy, today I’d like to introduce his 2018 release, Scorched Earth, published by Hodder & Stoughton.

Our engaging protagonist DS McAvoy is back on home ground in Hull, investigating a hit and run, which leads to a series of dark secrets. In addition to the menace and violence which are McAvoy’s daily diet, the action takes in African child soldiers and the migrant camp at Calais. 

This is where the stylish thriller starts with the Prologue:

 ‘This cold is a living thing. It hungers. It hunts. It feeds. When Manu first felt its bitter kiss he feared to look upon his bare arms lest they appear denuded of flesh: chewed to stark white bone.

How strange, he had thought. How strange that fire and ice should have the same desires; the same craven lust for meat.

Manu is wrapped around himself; his arms blanketing a body as flimsy as the shelter in which he squats, trying to keep his backside above the muddy floor. His eyes are pennies; two perfect circles that stare at the flapping wing of canvas that serves as the doorway of his feeble shelter. ‘

David Mark spent more than fifteen years as journalist, including seven years as a crime reporter with the Yorkshire Post in Hull, the setting for this DS MacAvoy Series. Scorched Earth is the seventh book in this series.