REVIEW: The Dark Winter. David Mark.

It’s so easy to select an established author or series of books to be able to have continuity of reading and an assured benchmark to rely on.
Taking a stab in the dark and selecting an unfamiliar name with a small portfolio of novels can be quite exciting and risky, even more so with a debut novel. A fresh new writer eager to please an unsuspecting audience, the emergence of the next Ian Rankin, Peter Robinson or Lee Child or a publisher’s wild card punt to briefly adorn the Waterstones shelves before collecting dust hidden away in the dark recesses of a charity shop can easily go through your mind during selection.
All authors start somewhere and stumbling across a debut novel from either word of mouth, publicity or just from being displayed in a prominent place in a book shop can give you that introduction.

Unusually for me I stumbled onto David Mark’s Dark Winter after locating him in a random search on Twitter. After reading novels by the Yorkshire Novelist Stuart Pawson I was ready to take on another of the counties writers, and subsequently added it to by growing list of must reads. A fortuitous win of tickets to the Theakstons Crime Tour in Leeds with Steve Mosby introducing two novelists Danielle Ramsey and David Mark was a chance not to be turned down.
Obtaining a signed copy and having an opportunity to meet and talk to the author was not what I had planned. This made me apprehensive in reading the novel, was I going to like the novel like a music fan likes a track just because it’s an act they admire or was I going to be able to read the novel and make a judgement in isolation or not make any judgement at all and just read and absorb the story its events and characters?

Easiest way was to just leave it to one side and pick it up when in the mood to read.

Getting a novel with an immediate sense of place and atmosphere and the committing of an injustice together with the balance of a strong characterisation are essential ingredients to any crime novel and The Dark Winter didn’t let me down. The main protagonist DS Aector McAvoy ‘s personality was introduced effectively giving the reader enough to want to connect with him yet leaving you with unanswered questions and the need to get to know what makes him tick and more importantly what keeps him ticking while residing and working in one on the country’s most challenging cities. A city where either your strength of character, career opportunity and love for the city keeps you there or the lack of opportunity and escape routes ties keeps you to the spot. A series of events keeps you engaged in the story keeping you guessing as to which direction the events will lead McAvoy.
The only disappointment for me was that they story came to a climax before I was ready, especially with the knowledge that the next instalment looks destined for 2013. All I can say is that it’s a good job that I have an increasing list of must reads to keep me occupied while I wait.

So what category do I place this novel. I can’t see it being relegated to the charity shelf and time will tell if the author can compete with the heavy weights of the crime genre. If the next instalment is crafted with the same level of skill, which I suspect it will, and there is not too big a time gap between subsequent novels then I believe we could be seeing the start of the Rebus of Yorkshire.