View source for Marked for Death by Tony Kent

{{infobox1
|title=Marked for Death
|author=Tony Kent
|reviewer=Sue Magee
|genre=Crime
|summary=It's the second book in the series but reads perfectly well as a standalone although I suspect that there might be spoilers for the first books in the series.
|rating=4
|buy=Yes
|borrow=Yes
|pages=448
|publisher=Elliott and Thompson
|date=February 2019
|isbn=978-1783963928
|website=https://www.tonykent.net/
|cover=1783963921
|aznuk=1783963921
|aznus=1783963921
}}

The death of a retired Lord Chief Justice would have made the news: his crucifixion dominated it and Detective Chief Inspector Joelle Levy of the Met's Major Incident Team was the person whose job is was to find his killer.  She never thought that it would be easy: the Lord Chief Justice had been making enemies in the course of his work for over half a century.  It seems unreasonable to suggest that the crucifixion of retired solicitor Adam Blunt might have given her a ray of hope, but surely two such grisly killings cannot be random?  All that's needed is to find out what connects the two cases.

News reporter Sarah Truman was covering the case for a major TV network and didn't suspect that her investigations would lead her straight back to her finacé, criminal barrister Michael Devlin.  Devlin was totally focused on his current case and didn't understand the implications of what was happening until tragedy struck a close friend and he realised that the people he held most dear were under threat, but no matter what Sarah says, Devlin is determined to see his case through to its conclusion.

It's easy to see connections between author Tony Kent and Michael Devlin.    Kent grew up in a close-knit Irish family in London, whilst Devlin was all too familiar with the streets of Belfast.  Tony qualified as a criminal barrister at the age of twenty two and both Kent and Devlin are very fit: Kent is a champion boxer.  Hopefully Kent doesn't get attacked in the course of his work, but the great advantage here is that Kent brings a level of authenticity to his story, which would be difficult to better.  Characterisation is good too, even relatively minor characters come off the page well and stay in the mind.

It's a good story and one that's not easy to put down once you've started reading.  I hadn't read the first book in the series but ''Marked for Death'' read perfectly well as a standalone, although I do suspect that there might be spoilers for the first book in the series,{{amazonurl|isbn=1783963824|title=Killer Intent}}.  This has all the hallmarks of a promising series to follow and I'd like to thank the publishers for letting Bookbag have a review copy.

If this book appeals then you might also enjoy [[The Racketeer by John Grisham]].

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