An engrossing police procedural with added human interest
D.I. Louise Blackwell and her CID team based in Weston-Super-Mare, Somerset, return in this fourth instalment in Matt Brolly's contemporary police procedural series. There's quite a lot of darkness to the narrative of The Mark, as Louise and her colleagues attempt to solve a series of vicious assaults, in which the victims have each been branded with a mysterious mark. Their investigations lead them into the shady world of drug dealers, addicts and underfunded rehab facilities in Weston, and to a group suspected of grooming underage schoolgirls some years previously. Meanwhile, station newcomer Inspector Dan Baker is heading up an operation aimed at curbing antisocial activity by cracking down on illegal service of alcohol - an operation that's impinging on Blackwell's attempts to identify and locate suspects and witnesses. And to add to Louise's already busy workload and family life, another victim of nasty Bristol DCI Tim Finch approaches Louise, requesting her assistance to bring him down for good. Series readers will recall Finch as Louise's much-loathed personal and career nemesis from earlier instalments, a man long overdue for some serious consequences for his misogyny and threatening behaviour. I found The Mark an engaging read, although I occasionally found Brolly's writing overly-convoluted and the dialogue sometimes unconvincing. My feeling is that The Mark could have been improved with some judicious editing, a phenomenon I've frequently encountered over the period of the COVID-19 pandemic. That said, it's a solid police procedural with no glaring plot holes and a well-developed cast of characters. Brolly employs some clever misdirection associated with the body art and initials of several characters, keeping the reader guessing as to the identities of the perpetrators until a final dramatic showdown in Louise's own home. The conclusion to The Mark foreshadows some changes for the central characters, and I look forward to reading future instalments in the series. I'd recommend The Mark to readers who enjoy well-conceived police procedural mysteries with added human interest.