Book Review: Cold Bones by David Mark @davidmarkwriter @MulhollandUK

Cold Bones
A DS McAvoy Novel #8
David Mark
Mulholland Books, January 2019
ISBN 978-1-473-64319-2
Hardcover

Cold Bones is the 8th and latest novel in Detective Sergeant Aector McAvoy’s series written by David Mark and set in Hull, East Yorkshire, England. It begins when McAvoy, who is dropping his daughter off at school, is approached by another parent. Knowing he’s with the police, she tells him she’s worried about an elderly lady who lives near her, but who she hasn’t seen for a few days. McAvoy offers to check on the neighbour and discovers the elderly lady, Enid Chappell, frozen to death in her bathtub.

After determining the woman has in fact been murdered, McAvoy calls it in. While he waits for the forensic team, he wanders from room to room in search of something that might give him an idea why this woman was murdered. When he spots a crossword puzzle with only one question attempted, he’s surprised that the letters spell out M C A V. He’s sure he doesn’t know the victim but can’t help wondering if there is a connection.

McAvoy’s investigation grows more complex when two elderly men, both retired trawler fishermen, are found murdered in an empty warehouse owned by Stephen Ballantine a local man businessman whose father, a trawler fisherman, was lost at sea before Stephen was born. McAvoy’s instincts tell him that the murder of Enid Chappell and the brutal killing of the two fishermen are connected. But the Area Commander, David Slattery, doesn’t agree and orders McAvoy to concentrate on the old woman’s death.

McAvoy tries to do as he’s ordered, but as his detectives dig into Enid Chappell’s background he learns she had been a well respected social worker dealing mostly with the close knit community of Trawler fishermen and their families.

Meanwhile McAvoy’s boss Superintendent Trish Pharaoh is in Iceland looking into the loss of a fishing trawler, where the ship’s owner and two crew members perished, their bodies never having been recovered. She hasn’t told McAvoy where she is or what has brought her here, but it isn’t hard to see that their paths at some point will converge.

Aector McAvoy is one of my favourite characters. He’s a big man, around 6ft.5in; a handsome Scot with red hair and a heart of gold. He’s great at his job, but he manages to get himself into dire and often scary situations. That’s because he never gives up, and tries always to do the right thing, even when it gets him into deep trouble.

While some of the violence in this book and in the series might make some readers uncomfortable, the appeal of the characters and the strong plotting make the journey entirely worthwhile. You’ll have to read for yourself how this intriguing tale of revenge and murder reaches it’s dramatic ending.

Check it out!!! You won’t regret it.

Reviewed by guest reviewer Moyra Tarling, May 2019.