I won a copy of Emeli Schepp‘s Marked for Revenge, book 2 of the Jana Berzelius series, several years ago. But it has been sitting on my shelf ever since. This is the year I’ve promised myself to clear that shelf off.  So, I borrowed a copy of the 1st one, Marked for Life, from the library so that I could finally read book 2.

About Marked For Life:
When a high-ranking head of the migration board is found shot to death in his living room, there is no shortage of suspects, including his wife. But no one expects to find the mysterious child-sized handprint in the childless home. 

Public prosecutor Jana Berzelius steps in to lead the investigation. Young and brilliant but emotionally cold, Berzelius, like her famous prosecutor father, won’t be swayed by the hysterical widow or intimidated by the threatening letters the victim had tried to hide. Jana is steely, aloof, impenetrable. That is, until the boy… 

A few days later on a nearby deserted shoreline, the body of a preteen boy is discovered, and with him, the murder weapon that killed him and the original victim. Berzelius is drawn more deeply into the case for as she attends his autopsy, she recognizes something strangely familiar in his small, scarred, heroin-riddled body. Cut deep into his flesh are initials that scream child trafficking and trigger in her a flash of memory of her own dark, fear-ridden past. Her connection to this boy has been carved with deliberation and malice that penetrate to her very core. 

Now, to protect her own hidden past, she must find the suspect behind these murders, before the police do.

My Review:

This book is probably objectively worth more stars than I would give it if I used stars on this blog. So, take my review with a grain of salt. But, I enjoyed it roughly three stars’ worth. I don’t read a lot of modern contemporary or procedural thrillers because, honestly, they generally bore me. The same was true of Marked for Life. In fact, I found the first half agonizingly slow. However, I’ll admit that past the halfway mark, things picked up, and by the end, I was invested in finding how things would work out.

Jana is an interesting character, though the oversight that made the bit of a twist at the end possible felt out of character for her (because it’s so obvious and she’s so smart, otherwise). The side-characters are fleshed out nicely, too. All in all, not bad for a book in a genre I’m not a huge fan of.

About Marked For Revenge:
When a Thai girl overdoses smuggling drugs, the trail points to Danillo, the one criminal MMA-trained public prosecutor Jana Berzelius most wants to destroy. Eager to erase any evidence of her sordid childhood, Berzelius must secretly hunt down this deadly nemesis with whom she shares a horrific past.

Meanwhile, the police are zeroing in on the elusive head of the long-entrenched Swedish narcotics trade, who goes by the name The Old Man. No one has ever encountered this diabolical mastermind in person; he is like a shadow, but a shadow who commands extreme respect. Who is this overarching drug lord? Berzelius craves to know his identity, even as she clandestinely tracks Danillo, who has threatened to out her for who she really is. She knows she must kill him first, before he can reveal her secrets. If she fails, she will lose everything.

As she prepares for the fight of her life, Berzelius discovers an even more explosive and insidious betrayal one that entangles her inextricably in the whole sordid network of crime.

My Review:

Like with the first book, I have a hard time reviewing this because I’m honestly just not a massive lover of police procedurals. So, was I bored up until the action at the end because I’m not thrilled by the genre, or because it’s actually slow and slogging? I don’t know. But up until the very end, I was bored, despite liking Jana as a character. In fact, I read this book one chapter at a time between other books, forcing myself to do even that much. It literally took a month.

Other Reviews:

Review: Marked for Life (Jana Berzelius, #1) by Emelie Schepp

Book Review: Marked for Revenge (Emelie Schepp) @emelieschepp @HarlequinBooks