Prolific author David Mark has released his eighth standalone novel, Twist of Fate under the author’s name of D L Mark. Opening with a clandestine meeting of two married people in a cemetery, their tryst ends in their bloodied deaths. Then we meet another couple trying to finalise their divorce when both get called back to work, as there has been a terrorist attack in London. Finally, we meet Claudine, whose brother was a victim killed in the murderous rampage and yet the police suspect he may have been involved. With its flowing narrative and interesting characters, this promised to be an engaging police procedural, with its London terror attack basis. However, it strangely morphed into a gothic vibe with a supernatural element, fixated on religion that seemed somewhat malapropos. Having not encountered the author’s works previously, it is hard to know how representative this thriller is, but it was an okay two and a half stars read rating. With thanks to Aria & Aries and the author, for an uncorrected advanced review copy for review purposes. As always, the opinions herein are totally my own and freely given.

Writing: 4/5
Character Development: 4/5
Plot: 3/5

Warnings: Language

Themes: Mystery, Horror, Thriller

Twist of Fate was different from anything I read. It was well writen and the characters were well developed but the story was not what I was expecting. It is a good book if you like a story that has a lot of moving pieces and jumps around. I can see how others could really enjoy the story and the different relationships between the characters, it just wasn’t for me. I will be interested to read other books by this author it just so happens this one didn’t click.

I received a free copy of this book and am leaving an honest review.

Thank you for NetGalley for providing me with this book for review. This book is complex, thought provoking and chilling, I'm left thinking about the ending, what an ending, loved it.

Unusual. Both the style of writing and this version of a psychological thriller. And yet there is something about the tortured nature of each character that is believable and, if nothing else, shows that we all have our demons to conquer.

Not for me this one!

Let’s start with the characters: Billy, the policeman, he wasn’t your usual tortured soul policeman battling to do the right thing despite his demons. Instead he was just an arse. Claudine, I really couldn’t have cared less about. And Jethro was made into a caricature.

Then there was the plot, which was confusing and (in my opinion) badly paced. Followed by an ending which was mildly ridiculous.

I hate leaving bad reviews for books and I’m sure lots of people will enjoy but it just wasn’t for me.

Gosh, where do I begin??
If you are into religious cults/fanaticism, massacres, unhinged detectives, and the supernatural, then this is gonna be right up your street!

This was super atmospheric with some very intense, complex characters.

I thought this was a really unique, gripping page turner. I was fully invested and found the ending wrapped up the story perfectly.

**I did not like Billy though. And in relation to his relationship with Claudine, I would suggest checking for trigger warnings.

This was a real twist to your normal thriller mystery novel. I genuinely found myself edging to know more at every turn & the outcome was a real plot twist moment! Such a great writer with real talent.

The writing style in this book was so unique and interesting and I found it to be a really unique and enjoyable read however a lot of it was really weird and I was confused it parts. It's a nice quick read with a decent mystery but not the most amazing book out there as some parts were hard to understand.

I would like to thank Netgalley and Aria & Aries for an advance copy of Twist of Fate, a stand-alone thriller set in London and Lincolnshire.

Claudine Cadjou is horrified when her brother is stabbed to death in front of her, one of five victims of a crazed knife man. Then the Police say he orchestrated the attack, but she finds it hard to believe as Jethro was a gentle, kind man. Then she digs deeper and finds strange religious beliefs are a part of Jethro’s life.

Twist of Fate is an unusual read, not so much in the theme, religious cults are a mainstay of crime fiction, but in the way I reacted to it. On the one hand I was intrigued by what was going on and so desperate to get answers that I wanted to read on, on the other I kept putting it down after a few pages as it didn’t hold my attention.

The novel is mostly told from the points of view of Claudine and DS Billy Dean in the present tense. This gives the novel a stream of consciousness feel at times and I found it disconcerting at first, but soon found the immediacy of the emotions a strength. It also allows a closeness between reader and protagonists that isn’t always possible in a third person narrative and offers greater character development than usual in a relatively short novel.

The story in the novel is told piecemeal, in between religious explanations and character exploration. I wasn’t overly impressed by this as I like a straightforward story that goes from A to B and I think that is what led to my disengagement, although, having said that, I liked what the author imagined. I lost my critical thinking facility years ago so the “theology” left me cold, well, to be honest, I couldn’t be bothered to think about it, although the author makes some interesting comments about the nature of faith towards the end.

Speaking of the ending. I liked the neat twist in the final sentences, but wasn’t too sure about what went before. It could be supernatural forces at work or it could be the imaginings of a mind that has had too much to cope with. I prefer the latter solution as it better fits the final twist, but, then, I’m of the touching is believing school of suspicious old gits.

Twist of Fate is an interesting read that is worth a look.

Intriguing dark atmospheric thriller with several threads running through it. There are several unexplained killings which are seemingly random. Add to that undertones of the unexplained and supernatural, history and the occult.
I dipped in and out of this one a bit, parts held me captivated and intrigued but other parts didn’t hold my interest quite so well. The characters in the main story were good and well rounded and I finished the book fairly quickly to see how it would all end. Worth a read.

The story of this is great but at times the writing become quite hard to keep working through as it felt a bit confusing in it's style.

Jethro is Claudine's brother. He visits her in London and is murdered alongside several others by an armed man. Claudine is a witness.
She travels to the family home in the Fens where she finds that Jethro was involved in research into a medieval cult..

Claudine is at work when her brother Jethro shows up unexpectedly one day. Her brother lives as a virtual hermit in the Fens, dresses like a hobo, is eccentric, intelligent, disturbed, and impossible, and fanatic, amongst other things. He never leaves the Fens, and absolutely never comes to London. But here he is. Claudine is embarrassed by him showing up like this in her place of work, and is not listening to him and what he is rambling on about, making no sense trying to tell her, she is just focussed on getting him to leave and asking him to meet her elsewhere later. Then the killer strikes, a madman with a knife, massacres several people in London, and Jethro is one of them. He is killed right in front of Claudine, who is left grief stricken at her loss. But when she goes to clear out her brothers remote and ramshackle house in the marshy Fens she finds herself caught up in something she never would have imagined. Her brother was researching some very odd religious material, and Claudine is suddenly wrapped up in a series of events that could lead to more deaths if she can’t figure it out.

This was a very unusual read, bouncing from a police crime drama. We had DS Dean being a stereotypical brash, washed up cynical cop, browbeaten, but passionate about the job and keen to solve the reason for the murders. We then had Claudine, a powerful woman of influence, who falls to pieces when she sees her brother killed, and starts spiralling into depression, despair, and losing track of reality.

Is it a crime drama, supernatural, or horror? The scenes set throughout the book lead you down every path, often at the same time. Jethro is portrayed as an ever evolving personality, kind, caring, naive, manipulative, manic, scheming, fanatic. We are brought along on a journey of discovery along with Claudine, as she tries to learn who her brother really was, and why he and others died that day. She soon realises that she may not be ready for the answers. It is a dark and twisting read, often keeping the reader as confused as the lead characters. Not a light read, but one that will leave you thinking long after you have put it down.

*I received this book from NetGalley for review, but all opinions are my own.

Liked the idea of this book and it started pretty positively but I felt it just got bogged down after around a third of it and to be honest I only kept reading it to the end as I'd invested time in it and was interested to find out where it went. In summary it was ok but not exceptional. Sure it will appear to many readers who are fans of this type of genre.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publishers for the opportunity to read and review the ARC..

I still don’t really know what I read with this book. It was a little too religious & unbelievable for me. It was a very hard read. A book this short, I can normally finish in a day. Maybe 2. It took me 6 days to finish this & I had to absolutely force myself. I was constantly confused at whose POV each chapter was. This just was not a book for me.

I’m afraid this was a bit too weird for me. I reached 20% before having to start again because I just hadn’t a clue what was going on. I managed to finish it, and although a few things slotted into place I found it strange, confusing, complex, creepy and too over-the-top. Well written, and others seem to love it, but it just wasn’t my cup of tea. Thanks to NetGalley and the publishers for the electronic copy though.

As varied as they are, and as extremely evil as some of the villains he encounters are, you know where you stand with the dividing line between good and evil in David Mark's DS McAvoy thrillers. On the other hand, you don't really know what you will come up against when you open a book under the author's D.L. Mark moniker, one of his standalone works that often have an element of supernatural horror about them. Twist of Fate certainly promises madness and murder in its opening chapters, but there is or may be a more common element to what drives people to dark unspeakable acts of violence, against themselves as well as against others.

One thing perhaps is relationships; relationships that go wrong or were perhaps wrong to begin with. Someone has to pay somewhere down the line, perhaps not quite as immediately and violently as the ends that meet Sam and Marguerite in the prologue, the two of them having an illicit romp in a cemetery (well, that's just asking for trouble in a book with a supernatural horror edge, and sure enough…). But what drives a knife wielding maniac muttering words in an incomprehensible language to attack and kill passersby in a busy street in central London? And is it really as random as it seems?

Broken families and relationships aren't hard to find amongst those who become involved in Twist of Fate. There is DS Billy Dean and his high-flying senior police officer wife Fran, whose marriage is heading for divorce if Billy can push down the bitterness, anger and love he still feels for her and sign the papers. Love is complicated. It also complicates the life of consultant Catherine Cadjou and her brother Jethro, both caught up in the aforementioned London knife-wielding terrorist attack, both of whom come from a troubled family background. There's a lot of hurt and pain here of a different sort than we are accustomed to in regular David Mark thrillers.

Or so you might think. Mark's writing, even at its most extreme ends of crime, murder, violence and madness is always grounded in human emotions and behaviours. It's not difficult to see what drives the big Scottish detective DSMcAvoy to protect his wife, children, and society as a police officer, nor is it difficult to understand the underlying human problems that drive people to crime. DS Dean however is certainly no DS McAvoy, but then not everyone fits neatly into a package of what we would like to think are normal human sentiments. As we have seen from the author's own mental health memoir, Piece of Mind, who can even say what is normal?

Aside from its own qualities as a personal and deeply insightful look into that subject, Piece of Mind also seems to have had the benefit of dislodging something in the writer, if I may be so bold as to speculate on something so personal. Mark sees pain everywhere in Twist of Fate, and in some way holds out a lot of sympathy for all of them. He even has a homeless person offering concern and advice to DS Billy Dean, recognising in his demeanor one of those "people whose soul has just sort of fractured". It doesn't prevent him from showing Dean acting like an utter bastard, his barely suppressed rage, contempt, hatred and bitterness palpable on the page. It's fantastic writing, holding back nothing, allowing the reader to feel sympathy at the same time as wishing someone would punch him in the face. DS Dean would probably like that though.

Aside from the shocking incident early in the novel, there is considerably less bloody gore in Twist of Fate, but there is a lot of barely suppressed violence of a different sort from a number of deeply troubled, fractured and broken people here. It's still as taut as any David Mark thriller, at the same time offering the author's characteristic deeper underlying exploration into disturbing human behaviours and misbehaviours. And supernatural elements? Maybe, or maybe not. Maybe human beings are a lot more complicated than we imagine and, with a history of horrors and even the lives of the saints to draw upon, they are capable of imagining and enacting violent acts without the need of otherworldly assistance. With the assurance and fearlessness of someone who has been there, come through it and understands it, David Mark and indeed D L Mark is not afraid to go there.

Loved the premise, it dives right in and starts off with a bang which kept me hooked the whole way through. It does get a but weird..... not gonna lie..... but its a fiction book so why not throw in some more extreme elements. The characters were well developed, if a little stereotypical at times. The tension is built throughout and it feels super creepy. It does get a bit confusing at times but I still loved it! I expected more of a domestic thriller but this was a bit more supernatural maybe? Or like a grimes fairytale type feel?

3.75/5 stars! The premise was gripping and exciting and kept me pulled in as a reader from the very first page. The main characters were fully developed and I found myself rooting for them. I think the only thing that lowered my appreciation for this book was that you really had to suspend reality for the conclusion. It wasn't super believable and didn't match the energy of the rest of the story. But a really enjoyable thriller and I will be checking out more stories by this author.

I received an advance review copy for free through NetGalley, and I am leaving this review voluntarily

Carnage in London. A sister witnesses her brother being slain before her. Quite a gruesome introduction to a story. But things aren't quite what they seem. No, not a terrorist outrage but the start of a quasi-religious mystery where the action centres on the Fens. D.L. Mark certainly sets the scene well, with rustling reeds, dank, black waters, driving rain and the rotten demise of an ancient cottage which was the home of the slain man, Claudine's brother. Some of Claudine's youth was spent with her brother at this cottage and she has some happy memories of the place but she hasn't been back for many years, preferring the bright lights of London. Now she reacquaints herself as she tries to get to grips with what troubled her brother enough to make the trip to London. The Fens make a great backdrop in raising the creepiness stakes, couple that with lust and zealotry and you have rather a good thriller. I enjoyed it.
It was not without niggles though:
A thirty year old mobile phone did not have a flashlight mode. More than likely it had a pull out aerial and that was it.
Ringworm is a fungal infection of the skin. It is not a parasitic worm either on the skin or in the gut.