One of the things I like about the crime and thriller genre is the sheer variety of writing. I have had that in the last week in spades. First Andrew Taylor's thoughtful, slow-burning Bleeding Heart Square. Right now I'm reading Bloodthirsty, a fast and funny Hollywood satire from Marshall Karp.
And in between them came The Mark, the debut thriller from Jason Pinter, an explosive 40-yard-dash of a novel, always in perpetual, furious motion.
In an interview with the author published on Material Witness last week, Pinter seemed to view his career with an extraordinary degree of urgency. It seems he treats he plots the same way. On the first page of chapter one of The Mark, Pinter's protagonist ambitious young journalist Henry Parker is preparing for his first day at the New York Gazette having hit the reporting big time and been hired from the Bend Bulletin in Oregon. He enters the building dreaming of his front page bylines and emulating his hero and new colleague Jack O'Donnell.
About 50 pages later, Parker has his fondest wish, he has a front page starring role , although sadly for him not in quite the way he envisaged. "Cop Killer" reads the headline, with a picture of his face beside it.
This comes about after Parker, working on behalf of the veteran hack O'Donnell, intervenes when he finds a cop brutalising an ex-con the reporter has gone to interview and his wife, with fatal consequences for the policeman and pretty dire ones for Parker.
What follows is a lightning fast car and rail chase that takes Parker from New York to St Louis and back again. On the way he picks up a beautiful ally in the shape of Amanda Davies, who he hitches a ride with an who decides to help him, and two deadly enemies, an FBI agent (and brother-in-law of the slain cop) and a relentless mafia hit man. Both want him dead.
So, does some of this feel a little contrived and somewhat unlikely? It sure does. But does this ruin the effect of the book in any way? No, it does not.
What you are promised on the cover of The Mark is what you get: "A gripping page-turner" (James Patterson); "a top-notch blend of crime, corruption and journalism at a breakneck pace" (Jeffrey Deaver); "an excellent debut" (Lee Child); "an author who dares to take the traditional thriller in a bold new direction" (Tess Gerritsen).
Some half decent judges of thrillers there, and they are more or less spot on. Literary fiction? No. A good thriller for the beach in July? Absolutely.
The Mark is pacey and exciting. I think I got through it in about 36 hours which tells its own story. In a matter of 360 odd pages Pinter crams in tons of action, develops and controls a plot that despite its contrivances always remains on the right side of the credibility, and even finds time to flesh out his characters. Parker is naive and optimistic, as Pinter intended him, but he is also resourceful and courageous, and I will be interested to see how he develops in future books.
Pinter has a touch of the Harlan Cobens about him. Although he lacks the sure touch of Coben, there is a similar confidence and ebullience in his narrative. The Mark is reminiscent of Tell No One, Coben's extraordinary first standalone novel, which I regard as one of the most skilfully constructed thrillers I have ever come across. While The Mark does not reach those giddy heights, there are already signs from the debutant Pinter that he has the technical skills to live with the best of them. The Mark is a fine start to what promises to be a long and successful career.
