Cezar’s Last Mark

The fallout from Ahmet’s black-market transplant ring finds Mark barely staying one step ahead of bloody reprisals, as they uncoil from Istanbul into the Turkish Mediterranean and then Romania. There, unbeknownst to Mark, police detective Andrei Costiniu is on a hunt to find the ringleader, whom Mark knows to be Cezar Kaminesky. Shortly after Cezar’s estranged wife, Olga, becomes Mark’s lover, she reveals a secret that puts Mark on a deadly course with Cezar. Andrei, meanwhile, unknowingly brings Mark into his daring bust, with stunning consequences for them both. But Cezar, who has learned of Olga’s affair, is a master at murder—and dead set to make his next mark.

Back Story

“Although Mark’s (and my) birthplace was Istanbul, most of the action in both Mark Kent books takes place elsewhere. I set much of Mark to Murder in Budapest, which I had some firsthand knowledge of. For Cezar’s Last Mark, I wanted to stretch myself further as a writer and see if I could bring to life places I have not yet visited—the Bodrum Peninsula, a Turkish resort area along the Mediterranean, and Romania. (I’ll let you be the judge of how successful I’ve been.)

As for the character of Ahmet, whose brutal demise provides the catapult for both books, among my high school mates was an Ahmet. (Fortunately, he has not met with the same misfortune as my character.) He dropped off my radar in the 1990s; I tried to track him down for years. In 2016, the two of us finally reconnected. He’s now living in the country where Mark and Cezar have their deadly reckoning: Romania.”               — Moris