77 NORTH (2023) ****
by D.L. Marshall
This paperback edition published by Canelo, 2023, 362pp
© D.L. Marshall, 2023
ISBN: 978-1-80436-431-4
Blurb: An agent the world thinks is dead can be useful. John Tyler has gone rogue, pursuing an international vendetta against those responsible for killing his brother. But he’s lured back by the CIA for one final mission to wipe the slate clean. Simple, for a man like Tyler: journey to an old Soviet-era hotel on an ice-locked island in the frozen wastes of Siberia to obtain information from a Russian scientist about a double agent within NATO. But strange things are afoot, events related to the hotel’s grisly past and the KGB’s Cold war experiments into psychic phenomena. Unexplained deaths revolve around the scientist, and with enemies from Tyler’s own past emerging from the rotting woodwork, he must fight to keep the man alive against the odds. But a killer stalks the hotel’s dilapidated corridors, able, apparently, to kill through concrete walls and sealed doors. As Tyler homes in on the NATO double agent, he quickly realises nothing is as it seems, no one can be trusted, and his own past is coming back to haunt him.
Comment: The third book in D.L. Marshall’s John Tyler trilogy rounds out his story in style. The action is thick, fast and furious, perhaps a little too much so, with the locked-room mystery element here forming less of a focus. Instead, the broader mystery surrounding the death of Tyler’s brother forms the book’s backbone. We are re-introduced to characters from the earlier books, so new readers would be advised to start the trilogy from Anthrax Island (book #1). This is a fitting conclusion to the trilogy for those already invested in the series. A quick word for the superb cover design, a refreshing change from the cliched silhouette style that has dominated in recent years and a nice nod back to the ’70s and ’80s adventure paperbacks.
