This is a great addition to the Joe Gunther series with lots of action and suspense, and the same great characters.

While working on his cadaver, a medical student at University of Vermont finds the man has a broken hyoid bone and hemorrhaging in the man's neck, and calls a professor over and she calls Bev Hillstrom, who calls Joe Gunther, her significant other and the head of the VBI (Vermont Bureau of Investigation. The man had been dead for nine months, and his doctor had certified as a natural death. The man's name was Nathan Lyon, and turns have owned a VERY large home (a former mill with several floors) in Brattleboro which housed many members of his family.

Interspersed with the VBI investigations, there in information about two thugs in Providence, Eddie and his cousin Fredo who are trying to figure out who set up Eddie for killing Vito, son of a mob member, who has just gotten out of jail. It isn't until near the end that the reader finally figures out the relevance of these thugs.

Joe quickly finds out the Nathan suddenly appeared when he was middleaged. It took awhile long to find out that he came from Providence, Rhode island, was named Nick Bianchi, and had something to do with the mob. Then, first his stepson, Gene, and then his daughter-in-law Michelle are murdered. More information continues to come about this extremely mixed up family.
Joe goes to Providence to talk with police there and find out more about Nick. At the same time, Rachel (Bev's daughter who works for the Brattleboro paper) and her friend Sally (a local PI) go to interview Nick's former secretary.

As usual, Joe finally figures everything out, and there is a bit of a surprise ending!

Archer Mayor's long-running Vermont-based series is a comfort read for me. It's fun to meet the same characters every year. The author does an exceptional job of depicting work relationships guided by a boss who (contrary to crime fiction cliche) is a good guy who cares about his team and has a lot of common sense.

In this outing, we are thrust into an upside-down manor house mystery, the kind where wealthy folks living in luxury begin to be picked off. But in this case, the patriarch is a mobbed up crook who forces people to live in his converted mill under his control, even though they almost all hate one another. It's a real nest of vipers. As the police investigate the suddenly suspicious death of the patriarch (only discovered long after his death, when a medical student dissects his body and finds a crushed hyoid bone, indicative of strangulation instead of natural causes), two low-level mobsters from Rhode Island are conducting their own parallel investigation, with neither group aware of the other.

I struggled to sort out the characters - there are many, and their relationships are tangled - and wished there was a character list. A family tree would be even more helpful, though it might contain spoilers. Toward the end I finally had them straightened out, but the first half was quite a challenge. The ending is quite abrupt, but leaves readers with a morally interesting and unexpected last-minute twist.

A welcome addition to the series. The protagonist shines again as the star of this franchise, and unless you’ve read several of the previous books, the other characters make take some sorting out to figure what each adds.

The marvelous Mr. Mayor marches on with book #32 in his acclaimed 'Joe Gunther' series! MARKED MAN is as good as we've come to expect from Archer Mayor. His adroit use of convergent storylines is a highlight here. Readers cannot help but like the scenes which are akin to Goodfellas in 'Road To Vermont.' As always, Mayor excels in terms of giving the evergrowing cast of characters their moments in the spotlight. And, that's a good thing in a book where there are no shortage of suspects. MARKED MAN is cunningly crafted by a writer at the top of his game. Thank you to St. Martin's and NetGalley for the advanced reading copy! #MarkedMan #NetGalley

Although this book was well written I found it quite confusing to keep all of the numerous characters straight. I had to repeatedly go back in the book to “ check in” with the multiple characters. I naturally read the book it’s entirety as I had so much concentration invested that I needed to know how the novel concluded.

304 pages

5 stars

Joe, Special Agent for Vermont's Bureau of Investigation (VBI), Beverly Hillstrom, state medical examiner and Joe's girlfriend, Willy the one-armed detective, Sammie, his partner, and Lester are all back for this latest police investigation. Rachel Reiling, reporter, also returns for this book.

Joe receives a telephone call from Beverly. She tells Joe that a medical student made a startling discovery in his cadaver class. The death is now suspicious. The man's name was Nathan Lyon an eighty-two year old from Joe's hometown.

Sammie and Lester go to interview Nathan's widow and family.

At the same time, private investigator Sally Kravitz gets a related case. Someone is stealing from the food business in the same huge building where all of the Lyons live.

Compiling all the information given by those interviewed, the reader finds Nathan Lyon was a monster: controlling and vicious. As one interviewee called him, “...a spider spinning his web.” As the investigation continues, the police learn Nathan's real identity.

Then more bodies turn up. All in the Lyon family and all living at the compound. The team reaches out to other police agencies. They look into Nathan's past now that they know who he really is.

It all comes together in the end.

In Archer Mayor's usual style, this book is very well written and plotted. I enjoyed meeting up with the old gang again. I really like Joe, Willy and the others. They are all such different people, yet they work together very well. I had no problem keeping the cops and the suspects straightened out. Having read all of Mr. Archer's previous novels, I was very familiar with the usual characters. So, all I had to do was keep the suspects and various other witnesses in order. This is a bang up read and I truly enjoyed it. I usually don't read books with organized crime involved in them, but this novel had me hooked. Next please, Mr. Mayor!

I want to thank St. Martin's Press/Minotaur Books for forwarding to me a copy of this most wonderful book for me to read, enjoy and review. The opinions expressed here are my own.

I'm a huge fan of Archie Mayor as I used to live in Brattleboro (the setting for most of his books) and I probably find it easier than most to follow his stories since I can often visualize exactly where his characters are. I enjoyed this one more than the last few, but as others have said, it does include quite a number of characters and I had to check myself a few times to make sure I had it right. I liked how the story intersected with goings on in Providence--that added a new element. All in all, I was quite satisfied with this latest book. I think readers are going to want to read a few of his earlier works before tackling this one so that they can get a good taste of his characters and settings.

Marked Man by Archer Mayor -- 4 Stars
Publisher: St. Martin’s Press
ISBN: 9781250224163

There were so many characters, plots, lies, twists, and time changes that I needed notes to keep track of them all. Despite that, I enjoyed the story. Nathan who had old mob connections was a master manipulator who brought together his extended family and over decades twisted their lives through lies and extortion. The characters had personalities that were complex and flawed in so many ways. The investigating team intelligently pieced together the facts of current and past crimes bring them to a surprising conclusion. Although there are more than thirty books in the Joe Gunther series, this is the first I have read. I thank Netgalley for introducing me to Archer Mayor’s books. I will read more of them.

Reviewer: Nancy

This book was just ok for me?! I don't know I just felt lost in a lot of places?! Not sure but the storyline wasn't bad the plot line moved ok just wasn't for me. Thank you Netgalley and the publisher for sharing this book with me!

I usually love these Archer Mayor books, but I found this one dismal and confusing. I find it hard to read books with so many characters and bizarre relationships. If you count the number of characters, some of whom have more than one name, this certainly stymied me.

The story of an unexpected discovery of homicide started out a an interesting story, but I found my head spinning from plots and subplots about TOO MANY characters and names.

Thank you Netgalley for the opportunity to read this novel.