Marked Men

Thank you NetGalley and Severn House for the eARC.
DC Sean Blake is moving into his own place after the death of his mother when a body is found, in a lock, drowned. His hands are tied with plastic ties and there are bricks in the bottom of his sleeping bag. Soon there's another drowned body, also with his hands tied. Sean and DS Magda Dragomir are soon on the lookout for a suspicious man who's been asking questions about the two men.
Jordan Hughes has just come out of jail after 17 years and he's bent on revenge on the men who accused him of setting a homeless man on fire, letting him take the rap when he wasn't even the one who committed the murder.
This is the 2nd book in the DC Sean Blake series and like the 1st one, a really good read. I love Sean, he's a good man who was a good son and his relationship with Magda is a joy to read. She's funny and really has Sean's back, as he has hers.
Even though Jordan is a killer, I couldn't help feeling empathy towards him, he got such a bad deal, and the men he's after are nasty brutes. The mystery has good twists with a surprising ending.
This series is becoming one of my favorites. I hope there are plenty more books to follow. The stories are gritty, but not overly gruesome and it helps that the two main detectives are so likeable. Highly recommended!

Manchester writer Chris Simms intoduced us to Detective Constable Sean Blake in Loose Tongues (Severn House, 2018) where he was making his debut in the city’s Serious Crimes Unit. Crime buffs will know that Simms has been around for a while, building a serious readership with his books about another Manchester copper, the rather more senior Detective Inspector Jon Spicer, as well as earlier novels featuring DC Iona Khan of the Manchester Counter Terrorism Unit.

Marked Men begins on an idyllic Spanish beach, but then switches to the less salubrious setting of urban Manchester, and we only learn the significance of the opening much later in the plot. This way of starting a novel has become rather well-worn, but Simms handles it well and times to perfection the revelation of its significance. The Manchester action begins with Blake in waders and hard hat at the bottom of a drained lock on a local canal. There is a body, naturally, with more to follow, and as Blake and his immediate boss, DS Dragomir criss-cross the city trying to make sense of the crime scenes we – like them – are drawn into thinking that the deaths are revenge killings. But who, exactly, is avenging what? This is where Chris Simms leads us – and his detectives – a merry dance. There is a clue, but I have to confess I didn’t get it any quicker than did Blake and Dragomir.

Police procedurals come and go; some writers, in an effort to take the genre in a new direction, make the featured police officers ever more quirky and disagreeable, to the extent that they are barely functioning as normal human beings. Simms has a steadier hand, and is happy to have Sean Blake as thoroughly decent fellow, perhaps a tad naïve at times, but – as an officer – alert and intelligent. The shadow of his late mother is slowly receding as he makes his on way through the complex office politics of the police station. For a boy brought up in rural Sussex and then spending his university days in Newcastle, Simms certainly knows his Manchester and, as in the Jon Spicer novels –

Marked Men will be out in hardback at the end of March, while Kindle users will have to wait for the Darling Buds of May to open before they get their chance. Chris Simms has his own website, a Facebook page, and is also on Twitter.

This is no straightforward murder mystery. It has an unusual storyline and carries the reader with several changes of direction before the very unlikely culprit is revealed. Set in and around Manchester,the characters are believable and the internal friction within the detectives involved adds to the context very effectively. There are moments of humour as well as accounts of dire events. I strongly recommend this as a gripping read.

#MarkedMen #NetGalley What a cracker of a follow on to Loose Tongues, even better than the first in my opinion!! I love this series, not least as it is set in my home town of Manchester. I have lived away from there for many years now but all the references to various places takes me straight back there and I love it! In this second in the series we learn more about the central characters, in particular DC Sean Blake and DS Magda Dragomir, they are a great duo and I love the fact that although there is some baggage for Sean in relation to his mother, for the best part he is a normal, if a bit naïve at times, junior detective. Plenty of action and the real culprit only discovered near the end, which in my book is a sign of a great author! Cant wait to read more in this series!

Superbly crafted.

Sean Blake is a Detective Constable in the Manchester area who works alongside his boss, DS Magda Drogomir. This is the second in the Sean Blake series but, as they are separate stories, they can be read in any order.

A body is found in a canal. It has been dumped there, and evidence points strongly to murder. Another body is found shortly after that with a similar MO and suspicion falls on Jordan Hughes, who has recently been released from prison having served 17 years for the murder of a homeless man. Hughes has always protested his innocence but the testaments given by a group of friends who were with him at the time of the crime were enough to convict him. He is now out for revenge.

What appears to be an open and shut case slowly opens up and proves to be more complex. Most of the gang still live locally and the passage of time has been kinder to some than others. Anthony Brown, for instance, has his finger in most illegal activities in his part of the city while others have descended into unemployment and drug taking. Whoever they are, their various nefarious activities will be slowly revealed as the plot progresses.

I enjoyed reading about how Sean and Magda investigated the murders. Their relationship felt real, and the atmosphere surrounding the local area was tangible. Even the internal police politics and rivalry was well played out and didn't intrude too much or feel forced. The dialogue was gritty, and the characterisation, even of the more minor characters was well developed. There were twists and turns towards the end where everything came together and although it ends more with a whimper than a bang it's entirely in keeping with the feel of the book and the lives it portrays. All the clues are there for the reader who takes the trouble to identify them.

First class. I shall be buying the first in the series and adding Chris Simms to the list of my favourite authors.

mr zorg

Breakaway Reviewers received a copy of the book to review.