Book review : Marked For Life - Emelie Schepp

Migrants have been big news for a while now. Whether it's the migrant camps in Calais and Dunkirk being dismantled or, as the headlines revealed this month, migrant craft being deliberately overturned as they try to make their way to Africa, they are seen by many as the scourge of society, unworthy of the right to live, let alone find their happy ending.

Emelie Schepp creates a vicious but believable storyline of migrant children being taken from containers they were hiding in to cross the oceans, their parents being shot and the children being made into throwaway assassins. It's chilling and disturbing precisely because it is, sadly, believable.

The Swedish police soon have a string of murders to solve. The chief investigators all seem to have interesting but under-developed personal stories - the overworked family man, the on-off-on-again couple, the constantly broke party girl, ... Maybe they will be further exploited in future books. There's a sequel, Marked For Revenge, already available in ebook, labelled as "the next book in Emelie Schepp's best-selling Jana Berzelius series".

It's therefore slightly unfortunate that Jana seemed to me the least believable, albeit intriguing, character in the book. Totally aloof and distant from her colleagues, it was hard to warm to her and I found it unlikely that someone in her professional capacity as a public prosecutor would manage to keep her backstory secret or be so flexible when it comes to respecting the law.

It's an interesting storyline though and an enjoyable read. I'll be interested to see how the plot develops in the next book and I'm hoping I'll start to appreciate the central character and empathise with her a bit more.

*** Don't miss an exclusive guest post from Emelie Schepp here on my blog, where she explains how she manages to maintain a work-life balance as a writer and mum ***

star rating : 4/5

RRP : £7.99

• Paperback: 384 pages
• Publisher: HQ (1 Jun. 2017)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1848455372
• ISBN-13: 978-1848455375

Disclosure : I received a review copy of the book.