Moris Senegor describes himself as a neurosurgeon by day, author by night. Having already published a handful of non-fiction works, he has now delved into the world of fiction with his novel titled MARK TO MURDER: DEATH IN BUDAPEST. Senegor also describes himself as a fan of wine, classical music, cycling, and photography. He cleverly takes the opportunity to insert each of these into this novel.
Mark Kent has his world turned upside down when he receives a strange message from an old friend. Kent is a successful radiologist living happily in San Francisco. One day, he finds a message scrawled on the back of a CT scan form in his native Turkish language. Apparently, the message is from his childhood school friend, Ahmet. This message includes a date and time for them to meet at the Gresham Palace hotel in Budapest.
Upon arrival, Mark discovers that Ahmet has not shown up at the specified time and place requested in his message. Mark searches for Ahmet’s room in the hotel, and upon entering, finds his old friend from Istanbul dead. Ahmet was apparently killed and left in the dry bathtub inside his spacious hotel room. Now, in a foreign country and looking at a friend he hasn’t seen in decades, Mark can run or dig into what might have happened.
While inside Ahmet’s room, an iPhone starts ringing. The name of the person he calls is the same as a girl he used to know named Gunsu. When he follows her after finding Ahmet’s body, Gunsu asks Mark to come see her in Istanbul. As Mark considers this, he finds himself in the presence of an Interpol agent named Jean-Claude Girard. Girard asks Mark if he knows a Turkish doctor named Mahmut Erkan Gazioglu. Mark has no idea who this individual was and now he has found out that Interpol is looking for him. Within hours of arriving in Budapest, on a visit for which he had only allocated a few days, Mark now finds himself smack in the middle of a situation he had never dreamed of.
Mark decides to play amateur detective rather than return to San Francisco. He searches for the doctor the Interpol agent told him about and discovers that he may be involved in an organ trafficking ring. As he continues to follow various leads, he finds himself being followed again, this time by a private detective named Mustafa Ersoy. Ersoy had been hired by Ahmet’s wife to spy on her husband, and Mark came across that case directly. It’s now obvious to Mark that something really important was going on, but he’s still not sure what his old friend’s role was in it.
Despite being urged to return home to the US, Mark presses on with his own investigation. He learns that his friend Ahmet had wanted Mark to smuggle him into the US upon his return. Now, Mark recognized that whatever Ahmet’s role was in this deadly situation, it was enough to leave everything behind and start anew in a new country. He could also explain why he was traveling under the assumed name of Nicolae Radu. Each new location and each corner that Mark turns presents more and more danger to the point where he will have to make a decision about whether or not it is worth discovering the truth.
MARK TO MURDER skips back and forth at times to Mark and Ahmet’s school days and there may be some clues that shape what is happening in the present day. It is clear that Moris Sengor is comfortable with the territory he is writing about and has an affinity for espionage. It will be interesting to see what he does next and see how his novels continue to improve with season. A good starting effort!