The Whispering Dead

November 1, 2020
Readers drawn to unreliable narrators will welcome Elizabeth Zahavi, the lead in this intriguing British mystery. There are plenty of reasons to question her stability. Years ago she indulged in self-mutilation. She's attempted suicide. She struggles now with a diagnosis of borderline personality disorder. Her attempt to visit a therapist provokes a lengthy scene of chaos ending with a car crash that sets the plot going. Elizabeth is profoundly unhappy with her her yawn of a husband, busy ""paying his mortgage and composting his tea bags."" A new relationship with a mysterious man offers hope, but he has dangerous secrets of his own: Did he really murder his first wife? Author Mark's way with words is the star here, describing clammy skin as ""like a wild mushroom at dawn"" and a trophy wife with ""costly breasts and teeth like sugar cubes."" Questions abound until the end, but that's how it is with an unreliable narrator.

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October 31, 2022
Mark’s dense sequel to 2019’s The Mausoleum opens in 1968, when Cordelia Hemlock, then a young, idealistic, but unsure recruit, is interviewed by SIS agent Walt Renwick for a position with MI6. Flash forward to 2016, the year journalist Paolo Fergus publishes an investigative piece on a 1983 conspiracy involving the death of a British intelligence agent given up to Guatemalan special forces in an effort “to avoid causing embarrassment to President Reagan” and to serve American and British interests in South America. This story prompts Cordelia to relate to Paulo events of 1982 that involve connecting the political stabilizing of Belize, a former British colony bordering Guatemala, with the controversial program to which Cordelia was assigned. Unbeknownst to her, she was marked by her superiors as “high risk” and “potentially subversive,” putting her, Walt, and the clandestine program at risk. Mack does a good job portraying the personal sacrifices public servants make, but at times the risks his characters are up against are unclear, especially as he requires the reader to connect many of the dots—both characters’ relationships and historical events—on their own. Espionage fans will have fun trying to separate fact from fiction.

October 15, 2022
No matter how deeply buried, some secrets have a way of coming uncomfortably to light. A brooding, evocative prologue set in 1968 introduces young Cordelia Hemlock, restlessly staring at a joyless gray sea as she stands on the verge of a consequential career with MI6. The story then jumps to 2016, which finds Cordelia comfortably retired, living in the north of England, and meeting journalist Paolo Fergus, who's recently posted a blistering expos� about death squads in Belize, the threat of revolution in Guatemala in the 1980s, and the involvement of MI6 therein. The puzzle pieces that explain the crimes he's reported fall progressively into place through alternating narratives from shrewd, quick-thinking Cordelia, writing in Guatemala in 1983, and hapless, middle-aged Felicity Goose, offering a different perspective via transcript in 2016. After Felicity and her husband, John, have been inexplicably taken prisoner not far from Cordelia's current home, John has the unenviable task of explaining his covert past as a spy working with Cordelia to his wife. On one level, the subtly layered novel is a study in contrasts. Mark gets maximum mileage from the disparity between his two female leads. Cordelia responds to threats with cool calculation; Felicity is understandably distraught--until she comes to display a firm resolve reminiscent of the veteran spy. Simmering beneath the twisty plot are questions about ethics, colonialism, and misogyny that add relevance and raise the novel above many of its familiar spy-story tropes. A brisk, astute espionage thriller with a compelling moral core.

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Starred review from October 15, 2022
Cordelia Hemlock is smart, restless, and bored, so she decides to apply to Britain's MI6 and is shocked when she's accepted as an agent. Her mentor, Walter, is a brilliant spy who doesn't play by the rules, and Cordelia adopts him as her model. Years later, she gets a call from Walter--no longer MI6 but still in the clandestine game--asking to use her country place as a safehouse for two Guatemalan refugees who've escaped the genocide taking place there. Walter wants to use the pair to help the British government understand the terrible consequences of its long-standing partnership with the U.S., which funds Guatemala's corrupt president and his terrible vendetta against the Indigenous people of his country. But Walter's plan fails badly and ends in tragedy. Decades later, after Cordelia has risen to become head of MI6, a journalist turns up, wanting to hear her version of what happened with Walter's "Guatemala plan." It's a horrific story with a tragic ending. Writing in a manner reminiscent of le Carr�, Mark offers a cryptic, dark tale filled with calamity, stinging humor, striking characters, a labyrinthine plot, and a clear message about governments' responsibilities for keeping citizens safe and rooting out corruption. Top-level espionage fiction.

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