by Mary Anne Barker

Details on how to win a copy of Marked at the end of this review.

Marked is an interesting sci-fi mystery. It takes place in the future,(at a guess about 80 years) where some people have acquired mind powers, some telepathy, telekinetic, pre-cognition, and teleportation and most of them have joined the Guide. My main problem with this book is that it is number three in a series, (I don’t like reading books out of order.)

The main character is named Adam, a former Guide member, a number eight on the telepathic scale. But he has a drug addiction problem; he is presently clean but almost constantly tempted to get “high” again.

He works with the Atlanta Police Department, mostly as an interrogator. But he has started partnering with a detective in the homicide division. She likes to close cases and having Adam helps her success rate.

The book starts with, since it is mystery, a dead body. Next Adam gets a call from an ex-fiancé, Kara, saying that her uncle is dead and she wants Adam’s help to discover the truth–another dead body.

But since Adam was thrown out of the Guide he is persona non grata there. However, working with the police has given him a better background for solving mysteries and figuring out who did things and why. So to help his ex he starts looking into the problem of her uncle. It looks like Kara’s uncle’s death is a suicide and the Guide wants to cover it up. Also, there seems to be a growing madness in the Guide and more suspicious suicides.

Most of the Guide members hate Adam and keep threatening to kill him. It seems that Adam was supposed to be a cautionary tale for guide members–you mess up, you get thrown out of the Guide, you die. But Adam has a NA advisor that helped pull him out of his downward spiral, even when Adam messed up and went back on the drug. Plus he has a job and seems to be doing alright. However, in this book he is also dealing with an injury that wiped out his telepathy a couple of months back (earlier book).

The tension in the book keeps ratcheting up. Adam has to find out what is going on within the Guide, solve a possible murder, and look out for himself at the same time. If you are looking for a good mystery with a sci-fi twist, check out Marked, but I recommend going back and reading the first two books first. Why not have an Alex Hughes binge reading weekend!

To enter to win a copy of Marked, simply email KRL at krlcontests@gmail[dot]com by replacing the [dot] with a period, and with the subject line “Marked,” or comment on this article. A winner will be chosen April 19, 2014. U.S. residents only.

Check out more fantasy/horror book and TV reviews in our Fantasy and Fangs section.

Use this link to buy the first book in the series, then hop over and buy the next two, and a portion goes to help support KRL:

Mary Anne Barker works at the Reedley Library. She loves books, TV and movies.