The Mark follows the story of a young college graduate, Henry Parker, as he leaves his small town and gets his first job at a newspaper in New York. Once there, he finds himself entangled in a mob plot and becomes a fugitive for a crime he did not commit. He is blamed for killling a cop, stealing a valuable package and is a wanted man chased by cops, federal agents, mobsters, and assassins. Looking for a way out, he hitches a ride with a stranger who eventually saves his life and becomes his sole ally.

Jason Pinter’s debut novel is a very good mystery-thriller, somewhere between the Bourne Identity and the DaVinci Code. His characters are easy to engage, expressive, and with emotions to which readers can relate. Henry reacts to the problems facing him as anyone would: he does not try to become a hero, he just wants to live and figure out how to get out of this mess. The details in the book provide the right level of description.

Dead bodies are described enough to get the point across that they died gruesomely, but not to the point where the reader is completely grossed out.

Also, another interesting tact that Pinter uses in this book is his use of backgrounds and how they reflect the mood. The reader can sense a bit of the immediate future through what the surroundings look like around his characters. As an example, towards the end of the book when Henry has given away his hiding spot and the cops are screaming up with drawn guns and the assassin has Henry trapped at gun point, one of the cops stops, looks out, and realizes “…the river looked absolutely beautiful. Dark blue, the surface glittering like a million silver dollars were resting at the bottom” (page 333). How can anything bad happen after a line like that? But I won’t give away the ending, so I guess you’ll just go have to read the book!

This novel is highly entertaining, a good read that does not take much brain power and provides a nice rest from math and science. I would recommend this book to anyone who likes a not-too-gory thrill, a mystery with some surprising twists, and an unexpected ending.