The background of the Marvik Mysteries

FATAL DEPTHS, number four in the Marvik mystery thriller series, was a difficult book to write, not because there was any lack of ideas for it but that it is the story of Marvik discovering the truth behind his parents death, when he was seventeen. They were killed in an underwater tremour off the Straits of Malacca in 1997.  I needed to pick up on the threads of this mentioned in the first three Marvik mysteries: DEADLY WAVES, DANGEROUS CARGO and LOST VOYAGE and weave them into number four, FATAL DEPTHS without boring readers with repetition.

Each Marvik mystery is a new story with undercover agent Art Marvik working for the UK Police National Intelligence Marine Squad since leaving the Royal Marines. Marvik’s boss, Detective Chief Superintendent Crowder, supplies Marvik with the barest details needed on each investigation because Marvik’s task in each thriller is to go into the case cold, ask questions, stir up feelings and danger, and risk his life in order to expose crimes and killers. It is what Marvik is good at, facing threats, he’s done it time and time again while on missions for the Royal Marines when he was a Special Boat Services officer.

In DEADLY WAVES Marvik has recently been invalided out of the Royal Marines. Adrift, wondering what lies ahead for him he is seeking refuge in a remote cottage on the Isle of Wight when a former girlfriend shows up with a disturbing story about the murder of a young woman fifteen years ago and her growing belief that the man convicted of it is innocent, Marvik doesn't think much of it until she goes missing. Suspected by the police of not only her abduction and possible murder, but also the disappearance of a computer research scientist, it's clear Marvik is being framed - but by whom and why. Marvik is sucked into a dangerous assignment and a web of deceit that will need all his skills, and those of his friend, former Royal Marine Special Forces Communicator, Shaun Strathen, to get to the truth. Their mission, to stop a ruthless killer before he kills again.

After DEADLY WAVES Marvik finds himself engaged, along with Strathen, to work for Crowder on a mission that takes him to Dorset.  In DANGEROUS CARGO Marvik is engaged to find the truth behind a fifty year old murder.  When an innocent woman is killed during the course of the investigation, Marvik realizes that the stakes are much higher than he’d previously thought. As he begins to uncover a trail of deceit, corruption and murder that spans over half a century, Marvik must confront a ruthless killer who will stop at nothing to make sure that his dangerous cargo of sins of the past stay in the past.

It is this murder in DANGEROUS CARGO, that of marine archaeologist, Sarah Redburn, which is a key element in FATAL DEPTHS. But before that, Marvik embarks on a third investigation in LOST VOYAGE when Detective Chief Superintendent Crowder, asks Marvik to investigate the disappearance of a salvage vessel, the Mary Jo, which went missing in 2003 when detailed to tow a Russian cruise ship out of Newfoundland to Britain for recycling. This was when a trans-Atlantic row was raging over the disposal of thirteen American toxic warships destined for Hartlepool in the UK for recycling. The warships, which had lain in the James River in Virginia for decades, contained hundreds of tonnes of hazardous substances, including asbestos, heavy diesel, mercury, lead-based paints and polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs).

The Mary Jo in LOST VOYAGE never reaches her destination. Then a decade later someone claims to have found her.  It is a claim that leads to a trail of deaths because the secret of the Mary Jo must never be revealed. Marvik, working undercover is tasked to discover what that deadly secret is and in so doing locate and stop another ruthless assassin.

To return to DANGEROUS CARGO though, not only is Sarah Redburn killed but Marvik also discovers a three-and-a-half inch floppy disk in her belongings with his father’s handwriting on it. He postpones the questions surrounding its contents and why Sarah should have it and places it in his safe deposit box in his London bank putting off asking computer expert Strathen to open it and reveal its contents. When a month later Marvik goes to retrieve it he finds it missing. When others connected with his parents’ past also go missing, and murder is committed, Marvik’s quest in FATAL DEPTHS becomes deadly dangerous in his bid to discover the truth behind his parents’ deaths.

I hope you enjoy reading all four of the Marvik Mystery Thrillers.  I might even get round to writing number five!