Cruel Mercy

Critics Review

• Highly entertaining

  The Sunday Times

• Effortlessly blends the brutal and the tender, the dark and the light. Aector McAvoy is a true original. So is David Mark.

  Mick Herron, author of Dead Lions

• More twists and turns than a corkscrew through the eyeball

  Val McDermid

• To call Mark’s novels police procedurals is like calling the Mona Lisa a pretty painting. Beautifully crafted, filled with flashbacks, horror, angst, and chilling detail, this one is his most complex and best yet.

  Kirkus starred review

• Dark, compelling crime writing of the highest order

  Daily Mail

• McAvoy must be one of the most fascinating fictional detectives out there – a true original. This is an intoxicating brew – Catholicism, travellers, underground fight scenes, the mob – and rumbling through it all like a bear with a blush is DS Aector McAvoy. Superb writing. A truly fantastic read.

  Michael J Malone, author of A Suitable Lie

• David Mark takes McAvoy to the US on a rollercoaster ride into darkness. Brilliantly written and compelling.

  Steve Cavanagh

• Truly exhilarating and inventive. Mark is a wonderfully descriptive writer and an exciting young talent.

  Peter James

• In McAvoy, David Mark has created a big hero with a huge heart. His skill at weaving threads of light through the darkest fabric has rightly won him a legion of fans who like their crime fiction to be real and compassionate.

  Sarah Hilary

• A brilliant read.

  Sun

• Mark’s rich, distinctive prose style and damaged characters compel you to keep reading… shaping up to be an essential crime series

  Crime Scene Magazine

• Aficionados of the grittiest, most trenchant fare love Mark’s copper Aector McAvoy, who customarily moves in a darkly realised Hull.

  Financial Times

• As with previous books, there are plenty of grim events to balance the warmth which surrounds the leading character.

  Crime Review

• David Mark has created a true hero for an age of dark deeds and dirty cops. The violence is righteous and the collars hard-won for DS Aector McAvoy, and as his luminous humanity and blazing courage take on the worst Hull can chuck at him, we follow him willingly down the meanest of streets.

  Karen Robinson, The Sunday Times

• The McAvoy series pulls off the double whammy of cracking characters and cunning plots. The big detective Aector McAvoy is so real and so loveable you want to have a pint with him, and the legendary Trish Pharaoh proves that a man can create an utterly compelling female character

  Anya Lipska

• The exceptional McAvoy series just got better. DEAD PRETTY is a gripping thriller…proof that David Mark is up there with the best

  Mari Hannah, author of the Kate Daniels series

• There is a good array of villains, and Mark is impressive in his sensitive portrayals of the relationships between the principal characters at work and home.

  The Times

• Breathtaking. Mark writes bad beautifully

  Peter May