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From the publisher:
Ten-year-old Hilda’s search for her missing friend has terrible consequences in this gripping psychological thriller.
When her friend Meda fails to turn up for dance class one evening, 10-year-old Hilda is convinced that something bad has happened to her, despite Meda’s family’s reassurances. Unable to shake off her concerns, Hilda turns to her mother, Molly, for help. Molly runs the Jolly Bonnet, a pub with links to the Whitechapel murders of a century before and a meeting place for an assortment of eccentrics drawn to its warm embrace. Among them is Lottie. Pathologist by day, vlogger by night, Lottie enlists the help of her army of online fans – and uncovers evidence that Meda isn’t the first young girl to go missing.
But Molly and Lottie’s investigations attract unwelcome attention. Two worlds are about to collide in a terrifying game of cat and mouse played out on the rain-lashed streets of London’s East End, a historic neighbourhood that has run red with the blood of innocents for centuries.
David Mark gives us a stand-alone novel with his current book. It is a horror story and if you like the genre a good one. The book takes place in England in modern times but with a haunting attachment to the murders by Jack the Ripper in the 1860s. The novel begins with 10-year-old Hilda beginning to worry about her friend Meda who hasn’t shown up for their dance class. Hilda tells her mother about her worries but with the result that Meda’s family doesn’t appear to be overly concerned about their daughter’s whereabouts.
Hilda’s mother, Molly, runs the Jolly Bonnet, a pub with links to the Whitechapel murders of a hundred years before. The scene is populated by characters reminiscent of a bloody past and an overriding interest by leading personnel in blood, its transfusion, discoveries of its nature down through the centuries, and its twisted use by the villain of the piece.
The individual committing crimes including the kidnapping of Meda is introduced at the beginning of the novel. This is done undoubtedly to paint a complete picture of the person, what has twisted him and made a homicidal maniac out of him. For those not averse to reading a novel steeped in horror, “A Rush of Blood” will be a rewarding experience with definite plans to read additional books by this author.
1/2020 Paul Lane
A RUSH OF BLOOD by David Mark. Severn House Publishers; Main edition (January 7, 2020). ISBN 978-0727889058. 224p.
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