Marks — Sam Smith

Life for country detective George Hawkins is a daily, clockwork routine of petty reports, small-time embezzlement and sleazy divorce. To save overnight stake-outs, shivering in his car, he chalks a line on a car tyre and roadway. The following morning, if the marks still match up, it's proof enough that a car has not been moved, and someone has been playing away from home.

But then â€" in the space of a few short hours â€" he must turn a blind eye to a callous hit-and-run, his home is targeted by a burglar with more on his mind than robbing a few knick-knacks, and his girlfriend mysteriously disappears without a trace. While zealous local police â€" obsessed with proving his guilt as a murderer â€" investigate him, George is forced into two investigations of his own that will change his life forever … one into a network of ruthless, high-tech industrial spies and another into his own heart and mind.

As the plot twists and turns, new questions are posed by every answer, and the pre-conceived ideas and prejudices planted by his father â€" a former Japanese prisoner of war on the killer Burma railroad â€" are turned on their head. In this baffling, psychological tangle, George no longer knows who is friend and who is foe. And the chalk marks he used to make to prove the guilt of overnight adulterers, no longer match up in his own life.


Publisher's note: As it says on the BeWrite website we try to give value for money and we have again with this book, if you care to take a look...