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Descent [Marc Miller #1]
Things go wrong for Marc very suddenly.
Losing his best buddy and a dream job leaves him grief-stricken and trying to escape from his reality.
When he meets the wrong person, he is easily exploited, and walks blindly into an intrigue. Before long, all the moral and existential certainties of his life have evaporated.
Through a bizarre twist, external events offer him a new sense of purpose. Could redemption come from outside, instead of within himself?
This book explores a man’s descent as he reaches his lowest ebb, and beyond.
Losing his best buddy and a dream job leaves him grief-stricken and trying to escape from his reality.
When he meets the wrong person, he is easily exploited, and walks blindly into an intrigue. Before long, all the moral and existential certainties of his life have evaporated.
Through a bizarre twist, external events offer him a new sense of purpose. Could redemption come from outside, instead of within himself?
This book explores a man’s descent as he reaches his lowest ebb, and beyond.
288 pages, Paperback
Published September 29, 2017
1 person is currently reading
568 people want to read
About the author
Tom Dawn
5 books12 followersAuthor of the Marc Miller action thrillers Dead Drop, Acts of Revenge and Descent
Also Knights of the Blackdowns published in 2020.
Also Knights of the Blackdowns published in 2020.
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Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews
November 6, 2017
Draws you in from the start following a sudden traumatic death. Vulnerable and at a low ebb,
Which way will he go?
Fast moving and an easy read. A touch of darkness about it. Gives you plenty to think about.
Looking forward to the next book.
Which way will he go?
Fast moving and an easy read. A touch of darkness about it. Gives you plenty to think about.
Looking forward to the next book.
March 25, 2019
Diver Marc Miller is having a really bad time. He's lost his best friend and his job; and he's afraid to go back in the water. Can things get any worse. Well yes actually. Marc returns to England and on a visit his brother Magnus and his enigmatic girlfriend Izzy, he gets drawn into a dangerous situation which gradually gets worse and spirals out of control.
Tom Dawn's debut novel is a well-written easy read. It has characters who are not what they seem; red herrings; and great plot twists. Marc Miller is a likeable hero, although I was not 100% convinced by his seeming ability to attract every female in sight. I very much enjoyed Descent, which is the first in a series, and I look forward to reading more from Tom Dawn.
Tom Dawn's debut novel is a well-written easy read. It has characters who are not what they seem; red herrings; and great plot twists. Marc Miller is a likeable hero, although I was not 100% convinced by his seeming ability to attract every female in sight. I very much enjoyed Descent, which is the first in a series, and I look forward to reading more from Tom Dawn.
December 4, 2017
This book is a page turner. Marcus looses his friend in a diving accident so goes back to his brothers.
Marcus get drawn into his brothers affairs and the plot thickens.
Marcus get drawn into his brothers affairs and the plot thickens.
June 15, 2018
Kudos to the team of the author – Tom Dawn - for ensuring that the book reaches me on time. It came to me from the UK & the author’s team ensured- with their immaculate tracking of the packet & following up with the Indian Customs – that the book arrives at the right door-step.
Guilt-ridden Marc (Marcus Miller) finds his way back home to his brother, Magnus, after the accidental death of his best friend Pete, that he had to witness at work. Dazzled by his brother’s girlfriend, Izzy’s (Isidora) beauty & dynamism, Marc ends up having an affair with her. Eventually his crush manipulates him to swap identities with his brother & leave the country to buy Magnus some time to finalize the best deal.
With his inclination towards cryptography & knowledge of math, Magnus has somehow managed to hack the internet, which might bring down major global consequences. The government wants to keep all this a secret and ends up bugging their house and even tailing them 24x7. Finally, Izzy comes up with a plan to let Magnus scoot the country to the US, with the identity of his brother & meet the organization to get his publications financed. All goes well until the bad guys show up. In the end Marc finds his true love & everyone lives happily ever after!
Descent has every aspect, that a blockbuster movie demands of. There’s kidnapping, fighting, killing, blood, sea, love & romance….how about adding few songs to it? Tom? Any thoughts?
One thing I liked about the story –
A very meticulously put together content by the author, adorned with perfect timing & placement of the characters.
& of course, the protagonist’s profession – sea diving - deep sea diving!!!
Although, I was hoping to read down the book, more about the sea & diving, but it seemed that the story demanded otherwise.
One thing I did not like about the story-
It seems like, Marc is a confused soul when it’s about women - as he ends up, either hitting or sleeping with each one of them, whom he comes across, in the book (eg; his best friend’s pregnant widow Amy, his brother’s girl-friend Izzy, one of his landlord’s niece Milena). And to be honest, it gets somewhat irrelevant at times.
In conclusion, published by Pomegranate at 280 pages, Descent by Tom Dawn stands good to “explore the devastating impact of guilt & personal manipulation on a man at the lowest ebb”
You can use the below link to get your own copy now-
https://www.amazon.com/Descent-Tom-Dawn/dp/1999831403
Happy Reading!!
Descent
Guilt-ridden Marc (Marcus Miller) finds his way back home to his brother, Magnus, after the accidental death of his best friend Pete, that he had to witness at work. Dazzled by his brother’s girlfriend, Izzy’s (Isidora) beauty & dynamism, Marc ends up having an affair with her. Eventually his crush manipulates him to swap identities with his brother & leave the country to buy Magnus some time to finalize the best deal.
With his inclination towards cryptography & knowledge of math, Magnus has somehow managed to hack the internet, which might bring down major global consequences. The government wants to keep all this a secret and ends up bugging their house and even tailing them 24x7. Finally, Izzy comes up with a plan to let Magnus scoot the country to the US, with the identity of his brother & meet the organization to get his publications financed. All goes well until the bad guys show up. In the end Marc finds his true love & everyone lives happily ever after!
Descent has every aspect, that a blockbuster movie demands of. There’s kidnapping, fighting, killing, blood, sea, love & romance….how about adding few songs to it? Tom? Any thoughts?
One thing I liked about the story –
A very meticulously put together content by the author, adorned with perfect timing & placement of the characters.
& of course, the protagonist’s profession – sea diving - deep sea diving!!!
Although, I was hoping to read down the book, more about the sea & diving, but it seemed that the story demanded otherwise.
One thing I did not like about the story-
It seems like, Marc is a confused soul when it’s about women - as he ends up, either hitting or sleeping with each one of them, whom he comes across, in the book (eg; his best friend’s pregnant widow Amy, his brother’s girl-friend Izzy, one of his landlord’s niece Milena). And to be honest, it gets somewhat irrelevant at times.
In conclusion, published by Pomegranate at 280 pages, Descent by Tom Dawn stands good to “explore the devastating impact of guilt & personal manipulation on a man at the lowest ebb”
You can use the below link to get your own copy now-
https://www.amazon.com/Descent-Tom-Dawn/dp/1999831403
Happy Reading!!
Descent
February 10, 2018
This was pretty good - easy to read and fast moving. The main character Marcus is a bit of a flawed hero. He nearly lost my sympathy earlier in the book, but I came round to him by the end. I might have been interested to know more about the work his brother Magnus was doing, although maybe my maths wouldn't stand up to more explanation. I see there is a sequel in the pipeline, which I'm looking forward to.
December 28, 2017
Good read great characters 4 or 4.5 stars
June 27, 2019
I had mixed feelings about this book. It starts wonderfully, pulling you straight into the action, so by the end of the first chapter, I was keen to keep reading - always a good sign.
The next part of the book, for me, did not live up to the promise of the first chapter. Having been through a traumatic experience, the main protagonist, Marc, is clearly shocked and guilt-ridden, sitting alone in his rented flat and replaying the events in his mind. He is interrupted by Milena, the cleaner, letting herself in, unaware that he has returned sooner than expected.
Marc had previously had a brief sexual liaison with Milena, so perhaps I shouldn't have been surprised when, after only five verbal exchanges, they fell into bed. It didn't quite pull me out of the story at that point - there had already been several indications that Marc was a bit of a drifter, moving from place to place and taking advantage of whatever presented itself. However, it did seem a little unlikely that, on learning that he was reeling from being involved in a fatal accident, Milena opined that he should be "doing something" to take his mind off it, and that "something" should be her.
There then followed a series of sexual encounters which really did pull me out of the story. I'm not sure whether the author was using them to highlight Marc's numb state of mind or to establish a facet of his character, but either way, it made him increasingly unlikeable. He reacts with shock to his feeling of arousal when talking to his late friend Pete's pregnant wife Amy at the funeral. Unlike Milena, we don't get a description of Amy's looks, just a mention of her pregnant belly. Later the same day, he drives over to his brother Magnus's house and meets Magnus's partner Izzy for the first time. We do get a description of the "sensational" Izzy and her incredible beauty.
Marc and Magnus go out for dinner, get drunk and stagger home. Magnus is completely plastered and Marc has to put him to bed. Izzy, who has been out with her friends, is in the kitchen when he comes back downstairs. She's in her nightshirt. This time, there are two verbal exchanges before she stretches up to get some glasses and flashes her knickers at him. Four more exchanges and they're having sex on the sofa.
The next woman he meets (the following morning, whilst hungover) is Persi, one of Izzy's friends. They chat and Persi insists that they share a pomegranate (a symbol of prosperity and fertility and which is said to give great beauty to those who eat it). After Persi leaves, Marc decides to call Pete's widow Amy and they agree to meet.
This was the section which made me put the book down and leave it for a couple of days. Marc and Amy are having a chat about how she has been feeling since Pete's death and mention is made of his ashes standing next to the TV in the living room. I was completely unprepared for the revelation that their conversation was happening in bed, after sex. Pete has been dead for just over a month, the funeral was a day or so earlier and Amy has suddenly decided that she is ready to jump into bed with her husband's best mate and chat about naming her baby after its daddy??
By this point, it was all seeming too implausible and I really did not like Marc at all. I'd had some sympathy for him, but this parade of sexual encounters chipped away at it until there was very little left. I know that plenty of people, of all genders, think with their genitals, and I know that grief does strange things to people, as does guilt. Even with that in mind, and having re-read the book up to this point, I still couldn't get this part to work for me. It's a real shame, because the story itself is good - slightly reminiscent of James Bond-style thrillers where everyone is impossibly beautiful, impossibly good at their job, and has seemingly limitless resources to enable them to prevail. Marc did not redeem himself, for me, although I am sure that others would take a different view of this, but by the end, I did dislike him slightly less.
Overall, I think the author did himself a bit of a disservice with the sexual encounters because none of them really rang true as they were presented, mainly from the women's perspective, but also from Marc's - there are other ways to show that someone is lost, numb and guilt-wracked that don't jolt the reader out of the story in the way that these do. There is peril, but because everyone involved is an expert with so many resources, it doesn't have the bite that it could have. I never really doubted for a moment that all would end well, and I wanted to doubt. I wanted to be invested in the characters and to care when they got into sticky situations, but I struggled because the author had made Marc and Izzy unlikeable almost from the outset. The sex part could easily have worked if presented differently - maybe by having him try to reject one of them and by omitting the encounter with his best mate's pregnant widow altogether, that being the most implausible of them. The sex was actually quite distracting during the action parts, because there were occasional references to the sexual energy between Marc and Izzy at points when you would think they would have had other priorities, like not dying, for example. With a stronger, more likeable protagonist who had a few morals and scruples, this could have been a great thriller. I wanted to like it, and was disappointed that it didn't really work for me.
The next part of the book, for me, did not live up to the promise of the first chapter. Having been through a traumatic experience, the main protagonist, Marc, is clearly shocked and guilt-ridden, sitting alone in his rented flat and replaying the events in his mind. He is interrupted by Milena, the cleaner, letting herself in, unaware that he has returned sooner than expected.
Marc had previously had a brief sexual liaison with Milena, so perhaps I shouldn't have been surprised when, after only five verbal exchanges, they fell into bed. It didn't quite pull me out of the story at that point - there had already been several indications that Marc was a bit of a drifter, moving from place to place and taking advantage of whatever presented itself. However, it did seem a little unlikely that, on learning that he was reeling from being involved in a fatal accident, Milena opined that he should be "doing something" to take his mind off it, and that "something" should be her.
There then followed a series of sexual encounters which really did pull me out of the story. I'm not sure whether the author was using them to highlight Marc's numb state of mind or to establish a facet of his character, but either way, it made him increasingly unlikeable. He reacts with shock to his feeling of arousal when talking to his late friend Pete's pregnant wife Amy at the funeral. Unlike Milena, we don't get a description of Amy's looks, just a mention of her pregnant belly. Later the same day, he drives over to his brother Magnus's house and meets Magnus's partner Izzy for the first time. We do get a description of the "sensational" Izzy and her incredible beauty.
Marc and Magnus go out for dinner, get drunk and stagger home. Magnus is completely plastered and Marc has to put him to bed. Izzy, who has been out with her friends, is in the kitchen when he comes back downstairs. She's in her nightshirt. This time, there are two verbal exchanges before she stretches up to get some glasses and flashes her knickers at him. Four more exchanges and they're having sex on the sofa.
The next woman he meets (the following morning, whilst hungover) is Persi, one of Izzy's friends. They chat and Persi insists that they share a pomegranate (a symbol of prosperity and fertility and which is said to give great beauty to those who eat it). After Persi leaves, Marc decides to call Pete's widow Amy and they agree to meet.
This was the section which made me put the book down and leave it for a couple of days. Marc and Amy are having a chat about how she has been feeling since Pete's death and mention is made of his ashes standing next to the TV in the living room. I was completely unprepared for the revelation that their conversation was happening in bed, after sex. Pete has been dead for just over a month, the funeral was a day or so earlier and Amy has suddenly decided that she is ready to jump into bed with her husband's best mate and chat about naming her baby after its daddy??
By this point, it was all seeming too implausible and I really did not like Marc at all. I'd had some sympathy for him, but this parade of sexual encounters chipped away at it until there was very little left. I know that plenty of people, of all genders, think with their genitals, and I know that grief does strange things to people, as does guilt. Even with that in mind, and having re-read the book up to this point, I still couldn't get this part to work for me. It's a real shame, because the story itself is good - slightly reminiscent of James Bond-style thrillers where everyone is impossibly beautiful, impossibly good at their job, and has seemingly limitless resources to enable them to prevail. Marc did not redeem himself, for me, although I am sure that others would take a different view of this, but by the end, I did dislike him slightly less.
Overall, I think the author did himself a bit of a disservice with the sexual encounters because none of them really rang true as they were presented, mainly from the women's perspective, but also from Marc's - there are other ways to show that someone is lost, numb and guilt-wracked that don't jolt the reader out of the story in the way that these do. There is peril, but because everyone involved is an expert with so many resources, it doesn't have the bite that it could have. I never really doubted for a moment that all would end well, and I wanted to doubt. I wanted to be invested in the characters and to care when they got into sticky situations, but I struggled because the author had made Marc and Izzy unlikeable almost from the outset. The sex part could easily have worked if presented differently - maybe by having him try to reject one of them and by omitting the encounter with his best mate's pregnant widow altogether, that being the most implausible of them. The sex was actually quite distracting during the action parts, because there were occasional references to the sexual energy between Marc and Izzy at points when you would think they would have had other priorities, like not dying, for example. With a stronger, more likeable protagonist who had a few morals and scruples, this could have been a great thriller. I wanted to like it, and was disappointed that it didn't really work for me.
March 5, 2019
Just finished Descent and really enjoyed it. Great characters, plenty of action, a great read x
May 15, 2019
A bonkers hero or just a bonker? Aquaphobic diver.
June 1, 2020
I have read my own book 50 or 100 times now... and never once thought to add it to my 'read' list!
March 26, 2019
I really wanted to like this book but am afraid I gave up on page 53. I know this guy has been traumatised by the death of his colleague, friend and mentor but having sex with both his brother’s girlfriend on first meeting and his mates heavily-pregnant widow as soon as he visited her, was just too much. Maybe he could do this without much of a conscience but for the women? Really? It just didn’t ring true to me and at that point (and a couple of things that didn’t add up) I decided it had to go in the abandoned pile.
July 19, 2020
I read this ages ago and remember enjoying it. I thought Acts of Revenge was even better
Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews