Marked Men

May 13, 2019
In Simms’s fine sequel to 2018’s Loose Tongues, Jordan Hughes, who has just finished serving more than a decade in prison for a murder he didn’t commit, is bent on taking revenge on those responsible, including Manchester, England, gang lord Anthony Brown. Two days after Hughes’s release, Det. Constable Sean Blake, and his partner, Det. Sgt. Magda Dragomir, investigate the death of Lee Goodwin, a ne’er-do-well who was found in a canal with his hands bound together by a plastic tie. Goodwin’s mother, who is remarkably unmoved by Lee’s death, points them to a friend of her son’s, Phil Nordern, but before Blake and Dragomir can track him down, Nordern’s body, also with its hands secured by plastic, turns up in a park lake. Chapters devoted to the police inquiry alternate with ones from Hughes’s perspective, heightening suspense as even more murders are committed. Simms does a good job of including developments in Blake’s personal life without having them dominate the plot. Fans of gritty police procedurals will be rewarded.

May 15, 2019
Revenge is best served cold in a second case for DC Sean Blake (Loose Tongues, 2018), of the Greater Manchester Police's Serious Crimes Unit. Jordan Hughes was only a kid of 15 when Anthony Brown and his mates at Belle Vue High framed him for the murder of Norman Hornby, a homeless man Ant had delighted in setting afire. Now, after spending half his life in prison, Jordan's free at last, and he makes a beeline for Ant and his confederates. Nick McGhee is off in Majorca on a photography assignment, but Kevin Rowe, Carl Parker, Phil Nordern, Lee Goodwin, and Ant himself, who's risen far enough in the world to own several casinos, are all available for target practice. Jordan wastes no time in ambushing Kevin Rowe in his own home and torturing him to death. In the meantime, Sean and his mentor, DS Magda Dragomir, have already learned of the murder of Lee Goodwin and Phil Nordern. What first looks like a routine game of cat and mouse is complicated by the fact that both of them were drowned--a far cry from the spectacular violence visited on Rowe. Even if Sean were somehow granted miraculous access to Jordan's mind, he'd be none the wiser, because Jordan, after a blackout of 48 hours, really can't remember whether he killed Goodwin and Nordern, much as he would have liked to. Is Jordan being framed once again? Are two different avengers at work? And if so, just what is the connection between them? Readers willing to suspend an awful lot of disbelief will be rewarded with a warts-and-all view of Greater Manchester's finest and an ending guaranteed to surprise.

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