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MARKED FOR LIFE
by Emilie Schepp
MIRA, June 2016
384 pages
$26.99
ISBN: 778319563


Buy in the UK | Buy in Canada

The first victim in Emelie Schepp's thriller MARKED FOR LIFE is Hans Juhlen who was in charge of asylum issues at Sweden's Migration Board. The team investigating his death includes a number of detectives as well as public prosecutor Jana Berzelius who is a bit of a mystery herself. She is the daughter of Karl Berzelius, a famous prosecutor, but her colleagues see her as cold and unemotional. When she is alone, she plays with a scar on her neck, which is usually concealed by her long hair. The scar is in the shape of a name, the letters KER brutally carved into her flesh.

As suspects are interrogated, including the victim's wife, a disturbing image of the victim appears. He was a wife abuser and a rapist. Strangely, the forensics team discovers that fingerprints at the crime scene are those of a child. Then another corpse is found, a young boy who was shot to death on a beach. Although a bullet killed him, he also displays signs of abuse. His body is emaciated and it appears that he had been injected with heroin. A name is carved into his neck.

After every few chapters about the on-going investigation, a chapter appears in italics describing victims of some sort of immigration tragedy. Little by little, a story unfolds. It seems that people from another country are being transported in shipping containers. The adults are murdered while the children are forced to undergo torturous training. A name related to death is carved into their necks as they are trained to be assassins.

The theme of immigration and its abuses is certainly a timely one, and the author has striven to create a great deal of suspense. Unfortunately, although MARKED FOR LIFE is the first of a trilogy focused on the enigmatic Jana Berzelius, certain problems in the book may discourage the reader from pursuing this intriguing story. The writing is marred by too much extraneous detail about the peripheral characters and their personal idiosyncrasies. Another issue is the English translation. It is awkward in many places, with a plethora of odd terminology and incorrect idioms. In the end, this sort of struggle with the book works to distract the reader from its compelling mystery. Perhaps unsurprisingly, no translator is named.

§ Anne Corey is a writer, poet, teacher and botanical artist in New York's Hudson Valley.

Reviewed by Anne Corey, June 2016

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Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)


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