When the Bough Breaks

Thank you NetGalley and Severn House for the eARC.
The first in the Sal Delaney series is a dark, at times disturbing read, with child abuse, mental health issues and an unusual serial killer. That said, it was such a riveting read!
It's set in the bleak north of England during a hazardous snowstorm. Sal, a traffic cop, has to deal with a murder during the impossible winter conditions while her mind is in a bad space after her horrendous childhood and a recent heartbreak.
The writing, the atmosphere and the shocking ending make for a spellbinding and riveting read and I recommend it highly! Can't wait to read no. 2 in the series.

I was unsure as to what to expect with this book, as i had never before, read anything by this author…I was very pleasantly surprised.

This is a well written, meaty, psychological crime thriller, set in snowy winter, in the North East of England. Full of murder, mental health issues, child abuse, and neglect, this was at times, quite a bleak read. The characters, and the plot made this a gripping tale, with an ending I did not see coming.

Thanks to the author, and to NetGalley for sending me this free ARC, which I am happy to leave a honest and voluntary review.

Cumbria, in North West England in the bleak midwinter - thick snow covers the landscape, as Collision Investigation Officer, Sal Delaney, is called out to a road traffic accident. What she finds shocks her to the core, and suddenly the memories of her traumatic childhood come flooding back.

Sal and her siblings had a really tough childhood, victims of domestic abuse, which culminated in the murder of their violent monster of a mother, by her ex lover Wulf. The kids never believed that Wulf had carried out the murder, he was the only good thing in their lives - the law thought differently though and Wulf served 20 years in jail.

Sal is certain that the car accident isn’t what it seems, because the victim is Barry Ford, the man her mother left Wulf for. And here’s the thing, Wulf, that kind and caring man has recently been released from prison! Coincidence? Well, we’re about to find out.

A great start to this new series, a complex, twisty multi layered novel, it delivers all the action you would expect from the work of a top rank thriller writer. David Mark manages to combine this with an exploration of family relationships, and the bleak place to which the constant search for pleasure through sensation, can take an individual. Recommended.

Ten years ago I read David Mark's debut Dark Winter. A book I recall being big on character and setting, but let down by a slightly disappointing plot.

Ten years on and I've just read When the Bough Breaks, the first book in his new Sal Delaney series and find myself with a comparable book.

Salome 'Sal' Delaney, like Aector McAvoy before her, is a memorable and instantly likeable character who arrives fully formed on the page.

Reading Dark Winter, and being familiar with its setting, it was clear that the author had a working knowledge of Hull, its residents and their quirks and foibles. I have little experience of Cumbria and its surroundings, but got the same impression from When the Bough Breaks.

The plot is a major improvement on the first DS McAvoy title, which is to be expected of an author who's much further into their career, but is again let down by an ending that's in large parts heavily telegraphed and predictable.

All in all a promising start to a new series.

‘He’s no danger to anybody. He’s served his time. He should never have been locked up in the first place.’

A new novel from David Mark? The beginning of a new series? I immediately put up my hand to read this. The novel is set in Cumbria in the north of England. Meet Salome (Sal) Delaney. After an abusive childhood, which ended with her mother Trina’s murder, Sal has tried to put the past behind her. In the prologue at the beginning of the novel we learn that Wulfric (Wulf) Hagman, Trina’s former lover, was arrested for Trina’s murder. He was found guilty and gaoled. Time has passed. Sal and her siblings are now adults, Wulf has been released from gaol, and Sal is a Collision Investigation Officer.

A car accident after a snowstorm sees Sal called to the scene. She recognises the body found in the car: it is Barry Ford, the man for whom her mother left Wulf. It soon becomes clear that Ford was murdered and Wulf, who lives close by, is an obvious suspect.
Sal, who never believed that Wulf killed her mother, finds herself drawn back into the past. The memories she tried so hard to bury threaten to overwhelm her. Who murdered Barry Ford? And if Wulf did not murder Trina, who did? Can Sal, and others involved at the time, trust their memories?

Gritty. A disturbing story, told from several viewpoints which includes mental health issues, as well as partner and child abuse. And the ending? Well, I did not anticipate that.

I am keenly awaiting the second book in this series.

Note: My thanks to NetGalley and Severn House for providing me with a free electronic copy of this book for review purposes.

Jennifer Cameron-Smith

This complex, twisty tale is a great start to a new series featuring Sal Delaney and it left me eager to find out what is in store in the next book. I loved the Cumbrian setting and the well portrayed characters, especially Jarod, what a complex person he is. It's a dark read, featuring child abuse and mental health but it is strangely compelling and one I would recommend. thanks to Net Galley for my ARC.

When the Bough Breaks opens like a slowly unfolding explosion that leaves a heck of a mess to be cleared up. Characteristically for David Mark - especially if you are familiar with his DS McAvoy series - that literary detonation unfolds upon a scene of horror, blood, murder, mutilation, pain and suffering, but also incorporates the author's characteristic dark humour, littered with northern expressions, wit and cynicism. Mark can't help himself. He's not a show off, just a brilliant writer with an affection or perhaps affliction for delving into the darkest corners of the human psyche and expressing it in all its gory detail with the sensitivity and creativity of a poet. But you shouldn't let that out you off (not least because Mark can write better than I can find a way to express it), because there is a lot more to When the Bough Breaks when the dust settles and the blood coagulates.
To set the scene for what is to come, Mark describes the abstract regaining of consciousness of PC Wulfric Hagman who, it has to be said, may be a policeman, but by his own admission can be a bad man. The scene before him is one that appears to be far worse than anything he has ever done before, as he wakes up beside his former girlfriend Trina Delaney whose throat has been cut and his glasses lodged there in the gash. He has apparently tried to hang himself, but the cord has been broken by his huge bulk. I say appears and apparently, and that's because although he turned up with murder on his mind, while pleading to be taken back after the relationship ruptured, Wulf has no actual memory of what has occurred.

That scene is followed by a testimony of sorts, one of a kind that was not admitted to the court in the trial of PC Hagman. It's by the daughter of the murdered woman, describing the hell of living with her and the brief happiness she and her siblings had when Uncle Wulf was around. That’s Sal writing, short for Salome, who with the tireless help of Dagmara and the social services has ...well, survived more than thrived really, the current testimony a plea for admission or scholarship to university that exposes her state of mind. Twenty three years later, she's now a police officer herself, a Collision Investigation Officer, with Uncle Wulf now released from prison living with her and her brother. There will soon be an accident close to where she lives, one that is also close to home in other ways.

There's are a few more short fragmentary scenes to collect before you can start to put together the puzzle of what happened 23 years ago and what happened in the intervening years. So when the Hagman case is coming up for review, looking at whether there has been a potential unsafe conviction, his appeal assisted by the testimony of the dead woman's children, you can be sure that there are interested and potentially guilty parties wanting to make sure they can find enough evidence of further crimes to pin on him and put him back inside.

David Mark certainly challenges the reader with some dark and brutal fragmentary scenes, but there is enough light and shade and enough of a connection to keep you intrigued. It helps that writing itself is so enthralling, Mark finding the most effective way of putting this information out there in prose that is dazzling, human and insightful, capturing all the horror that life can throw at people and how they react, or choose to react to situations of intense mental distress. And, as the author of his own memoir of struggling with mental illness, Piece of Mind, Mark knows what he is talking about.

Mark might have no qualms about describing torture and dismemberment, the aftermath of a victim who has had acid poured down his mouth and he is fearless about confronting his own mental health problems, but When the Bough Breaks is still not a conventional thriller study of the dark side, about psychotics who commit unspeakable crimes - though of course there's a good chance you'll run across one or two here. The focus is wider than that and, as you will often find often in his works, there is an element of concern for social justice, for the victims and the innocent bystanders caught up in these horrors, for those trampled on by the authorities. Those with power in authority can cause needless deaths and inflict misery on a greater scale than the average serial killer. There are worse horrors you can inflict upon people and especially children that they have to live with for the rest of their lives.

If I have one minor criticism of When the Bough Breaks, it's that I thought the author gave too many clues too early on as to what the revelation might be at the end of the book. That's only a minor niggle really, perhaps just a personal one and it might even be intended to give the reader a sporting chance to take in those wider implications. Mark’s characterisation, writing and dramatic progress of the situation is otherwise flawless, and even if you think you know what direction it's pointing towards, you can be sure there's more to it than you think when you get there. Nothing is that simple when it comes to David Mark's thrillers because life, crime, its motivations and impact aren't that simple either. This is a powerful opening and background story for further Sal Delaney mysteries.

A bleak story, a bleak setting, a grim story heartbreaking at time. I was moved and was on the edge.
This promises to become an excellent series, this one is very tense and a bit disturbing at times.
An excellent thriller with a lot of darkness
Recommended.
Many thanks to the publisher for this ARC, all opinions are mine

I have read quite a few stand alone books by this author and have thoroughly enjoyed every one. I also have his Aector McAvoy series to play catch-up with, so it was with great delight that I was able to get in at the beginning of this, a new series featuring Collision Investigation Officer (Traffic Cop) Sal Delaney. She has a bit of a past, mostly regarding the murder of her mother at the hands of her step-father, Wulf, who was convicted, but I will leave you to discover all the juicy details of that as the author intends. Suffice to say she is doing her best to leave her past behind her and get on with things and, up to now, has been doing a pretty good job of it. Until she is called to the scene of an accident and recognises the deceased as being the man her mother left Wulf for, many years ago. With Wulf now out of prison and living nearby, and the "accident" not really stacking up as such, well... you can see where we are going. But, that'd be a pretty boring, and short, book. Instead, we have Sal, who was never really convinced of Wulf's guilt, not only fighting to save him again, but also get to what she feels is the real truth of what happened to her mother many years ago...
Oh my days, this book literally hit the ground running, grabbed me from the off, held me captive throughout, spitting me out at the end wholly satisfied but also quite exhausted. I already knew this might be the case so I made sure that I cleared my decks before going in, and I am so glad I did just that as I really didn't want to put the book down.
It's so very cleverly plotted and said plot well ably executed. With its twists and turns and forays into the past, it really did have me on the edge of my seat throughout. With the usual secrets and lies and a side order of dysfunctional behaviour you'd expect, I could only watch as the action played out in front of me.
And Sal herself, well, I took to her right from the start too. She's a cracking character with just the right amount of tortured past to define her present. And with grit and tenacity, she really is a force to reckon with. Yes the book delves into some quite heavy subject matter - nothing new in this genre and I am not about to trigger warn you - but it does get a bit on the bleak side on occasion. But there are the lighter moments which prevent the book from getting too dark and keep it balanced.
And the ending... brilliant... and that's all I'm saying. You'll have to read the book fro yourself. Me I'm hanging for book two... My thanks go to the Publisher and Netgalley for the chance to read this book.

Community police constable Wulf Hagman was jailed in 1995 for the murder of his one time lover Trina Delaney. He claimed that Trina was abusive to her children. He was particularly keen to protect Salome and her brother Jarod.
Now thirty years later Wulf has been released and is back in the Carlisle area. Salome ( Sal) Delaney is a collision investigation officer. She has recently parted from the love of her life Lewis Beecher ( who is a police detective ). She is heartbroken.
Dagmara Scrowther is a Social worker who cared for the Delaney children and protected them. Detective superintendent Magda Quinn has made mistakes and has been sidelined. However she believes she has the perfect plan to get her career back on track and it concerns with Wulf.
Sal finds the badly mutilated body of Barry Ford his car had crashed and acid has disfigured him. The murdered man was her mother's last lover. Is Wulf responsible?
A harrowing and difficult story. Well written and plotted as usual by this talented author. Plenty of twists and turns to keep you guessing. Is Wulf a serial killer or is something else at work? I look forward to meeting Sal again in the next book in the series.

A good start to a new series. Sal's early life was a misery in so many ways but the one bright light was Wulf, was later convicted of killing her mother. Now, she's pulled herself together and is working in Cumbria as a traffic cop but the discovery of the body of the man her mother left Wulf for opens up a can of worms. This packs a lot into a relatively slim volume but it's atmospheric (love the setting) and twisty. And I didn't guess the ending. Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC. Happy that Mark has created a new character.

David Mark has taken a temporary break from his excellent Aector McAvoy series (click the link to find out more) and his latest novel has a prologue that is as violent and visceral as any of the disturbing scenes in Derek Raymond's I Was Dora Suarez. If you have read that masterpiece, you will know what I am talking about. If you haven't, then you should. Here, copper Wulfric Hagman wakes up in a charnel house, apparently of his own creation. His former lover, Trina Delany lies butchered on the bed, while he seems to have tried to hang himself with a length of baler twine.

That was then, but now, Hagman has served a prison sentence, been released, and is now living in a moorland farmhouse he gifted by Jarod, one of Trina's children. His twin sister, Salome is also living there. She is a traffic cop, formally known,in today's jargon, as Collision Investigation Officer. At Hagman's original trial, both Sal and Jarod gave chilling evidence testifying to the abuse they - and the other children - received at Trina's hands.

Against this unusual human background and with the Northumbrian hills carpeted in deep snow, David Mark weaves his magic. The plot is complex, but this is a breakdown of the main characters.

Salome Delaney, police officer.
Jarod Delaney, Sal's twin. Now a farmer, living in a house signed over to him by ...
Wulfric Hagman, former policeman, served a long prison term for the murder of Trina Delaney. He now lodges with the Delaneys.
Dagmara Scrowther, charismatic Children's Services officer. Worked with the Delaney family.
Lewis Beecher, senior police officer, divorced. Has recently ended a long term relationship with Sal Delaney.
Barry Ford. Once a child tearaway, now relatively respectable. Former lover of Trina Delaney.
Detective Superintendent Magda Quinn. Has re-opened the Hagman case, believing him to be guilty of more murders.

With transport paralysed by deep snow, Salome - although on leave - receives a call from a fellow officer asking her to go and investigate a car that has come off the road just a couple of miles away. She clings on grimly as Jarod's quad-bike makes light work of the snow drifts. She finds the wrecked car, but the macabre feeding habits of local crows lead her to a man's body. Some of the crows who have fed on the corpse are collapsing and dying. The reason? The body has had acid poured into his throat.

This grim discovery sets off a train of events that are as violent and disturbing as anything I have read in recent crime fiction. I am a great admirer of David Mark's writing, and I make no apology for frequently comparing his style to that of Derek Raymond. Like Raymond, Mark takes us into dark places where monsters - in human form - ply their trade. Like Raymond's nameless Sergeant in the five Factory novels, Mark's heroes are often gravely damaged, but have a depth of compassion that always brings about a sense of redemption at the end of the journey, no matter how hellish the road.

The body in the snow is eventually identified as being that of Barry Ford, a man who was a troubled youngster but, thanks to the perseverance of Dagmara Scrowther, seems to have turned himself into something of a decent citizen. However, when Salome, hastily drafted back to work as a Family Liaison Officer, has to break the news of Ford's demise to his current girlfriend, she opens a Pandora's Box from which fly demons of cruelty and bestial abuse. Also in the mix is the fate of Lewis Beecher's divorced wife. She and her two daughters - Nola and Lottie - have a new 'dad'. He seems jolly and full of jokes, but is he genuine?

In this superb novel we cross paths with many human monsters. Trina Delaney is one, certainly, and Barry Ford is not far behind. But a third monster lurks in plain sight. Its identity is known to me, but you will have to find out for yourselves. When The Bough Breaks is published by Severn House and is available now.

The story begins in Cumbria 1995 with an unfortunate incident where Wulf is convicted of the murder of Tina Delaney. Fast forward to the present time, Salome Delaney is living on the family farm that once belonged to Wulf, with her twin brother. Sal is a Traffic Collision Officer and she is sent to the scene of a car accident. However, all is not as it seems. It was an unputdownable book which had me racing to the end with a dramatic conclusion. The victim is someone from Sal's past with connections to her Mum! It was well written and very descriptive. I recommend this book.

Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for this eARC.

When the Bough Breaks by David Mark is a compelling addition to the crime and mystery genre, marking the beginning of a new series that promises to captivate readers with its intricate plot and deeply flawed characters.

Set against the bleak backdrop of Cumbria, England, the novel opens with a jarring scene from 1995: Police Constable Wulfric Hagman, in a drunken haze, discovers the brutalized body of his wife, Trina. His subsequent arrest and conviction for her murder set the stage for a story that unfolds over decades, revealing layers of family trauma and systemic failure.

The narrative is masterfully fragmented, shifting through time and perspectives, including a poignant letter from Trina’s daughter, Salome Delaney, which paints a more sympathetic picture of Wulf as a protective stepfather. The plot thickens with the murder of Barry Ford, Trina’s lover, implicating Wulf once again, just as he is released from prison.

Sal, now a police officer, and her brother Jarod become central to the story as they navigate their traumatic past and the complexities of their present investigation to clear their stepfather’s name. Their journey is not just a quest for justice but also a search for closure and understanding of their family’s dark history.

David Mark’s writing is sharp and evocative, creating a world where the coldness of the landscape mirrors the isolation of its inhabitants. The author’s experience with the DS Aector McAvoy novels is evident in the tight police procedural elements and the suspense that drives the narrative forward.

When the Bough Breaks is an exploration of the human condition, the bonds of family, and the lengths to which one will go to protect loved ones. It’s a story that resonates with the resilience of its characters and leaves readers pondering the true meaning of justice and redemption.

Mark has delivered a novel that is both a page-turner and a thought-provoking piece, ensuring that readers will eagerly await the next installment in the Sal Delaney series

A harrowing and enthralling psychological crime thriller. When Sal was a little girl, her mum Trina was killed. Her ex-lover, local policeman Wulf was convicted of her murder, but was he guilty? A terrifying mystery that will thrust their darkest secrets into the light.