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Otho Eskin

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The Reflecting Pool (Marko Zorn Book 1) Kindle Edition

by Otho Eskin (Author) Format: Kindle Edition

4.3 657 ratings

Book 1 of 3: Marko Zorn

Editors' pick Best Mystery, Thriller & Suspense

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Murder leads to the White House

Marko Zorn, a Washington, D.C. homicide detective with expensive tastes in art, classic cars, and women, must take on extra work—not always strictly legal, often unorthodox and usually dangerous—to supplement his income—work which requires his special combination of skill and steel nerves. Although he's adept at navigating the corridors of law enforcement and the world of criminal gangs, he'd prefer to stay home and watch old movies, enjoy his art collection, and listen to cool jazz.

When Zorn discovers the body of a Secret Service agent—a supposed drowning victim—it leads him to a domestic terrorist group with tentacles in the White House—a White House that does not want this death investigated. As the demands of his professional life escalate, Zorn's alternate career heats up, placing him in the middle of competing D.C. crime bosses feuding over a shipment of illegal arms—making Zorn the hunted and the hunter. He needs to avoid becoming the victim as he navigates the twin forces of evil closing in on him from his legitimate job—facing down political power—and his secret side job.

Perfect for Grisham and Patterson fans

Head Shot, the next Marko Zorn novel, coming December 2021

From the Publisher

Editorial Reviews

Review

“Rough and ragged as the world it so vividly creates, The Reflecting Pool crackles with twists and turns, making for a fun and heady combination of suspense and intrigue.” —Steve Berry, New York Times best-selling author

“The Reflecting Pool is a mystery-thriller constructed along classic lines. In unorthodox homicide detective Marko Zorn, Otho Eskin has created the best crime hero this side of Michael Connelly's Harry Bosch and the result is a slam-dunk success. Woven from the fabric of masters like Ross McDonald and Robert Crais, this riveting page-turner is never afraid to cut its own cloth to terrific results.” —Jon Land, USA Today best-selling author

“The Reflecting Pool by Otho Eskin is the best crime thriller I've read in years, and homicide Detective Marko Zorn is a character I'd like to have a beer with—so long as he's on my side. Bravo!” —John Gilstrap, New York Times best-selling author

“An authentically nail-biting thriller—it's Robert B. Parker meets David Baldacci in this fast-paced page-turner. Otho Eskin has created such a brilliant character in his Marko Zorn: wise and eloquent, witty, and surprising. And quietly, heartbreakingly, brave. This chilling political thriller is wonderfully textured with a high-stakes emotional drama—and I could not turn the pages fast enough. Head Shot is instantly cinematic—and completely entertaining!” —Hank Phillippi Ryan, USA Today best-selling author

“Readers will look forward to seeing more of Zorn, a distinctive lead with his dry humor, clipped dialogue, and rogue tendencies. Eskin is off to a good start.” —Publishers Weekly

“First-person action mixes with hardboiled political noir in Eskin’s debut novel [The Reflecting Pool] . . . Urban warfare, assassination plots, and political intrigue converge in one bombastic climax.” —Suspense Magazine

“The Reflecting Pool has the kind of unexpected plot twists and turns that keeps the reader's riveted attention from beginning to end.” —Midwest Book Review

“Filled with witty personalities and shady power players, The Reflecting Pool is a fast-paced D. C. murder mystery where the stakes and suspense reach monumental heights.” —The Foreign Service Journal

About the Author

Otho Eskin is a lawyer and a former member of the United States Foreign Service. He is active in the Washington theater scene and a playwright whose work has appeared in New York, Washington, D.C., and Europe. The Reflecting Pool is his debut novel. He lives in Washington, D.C.

Product details

ASIN ‏ : ‎ B086HDGFKJ
Publisher ‏ : ‎ Oceanview Publishing (June 23, 2020)
Publication date ‏ : ‎ June 23, 2020
Language ‏ : ‎ English
File size ‏ : ‎ 2870 KB
Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Sticky notes ‏ : ‎ On Kindle Scribe
Print length ‏ : ‎ 353 pages

Best Sellers Rank: #642,619 in Kindle Store (See Top 100 in Kindle Store)
- #2,900 in Espionage Thrillers (Kindle Store)
- #4,214 in Espionage Thrillers (Books)
- #8,003 in Police Procedurals (Kindle Store)

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4.3 657 ratings

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Otho Eskin

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Otho Eskin published his first thriller, The Reflecting Pool, to great reviews and book club interest in 2020. It was selected as an Amazon Editors’ Pick for Best Mystery, Thriller and Suspense. The Reflecting Pool follows Marko Zorn- a Washington D.C. homicide detective who has a strong ethical compass but refuses to play by the rules. The sequel, Head Shot, also featuring Marko Zorn was released on December 14, 2021, to glowing reviews.

Before he turned to writing fiction, Otho Eskin served in the U.S. Army and in the United States Foreign Service in Washington and in Syria, Yugoslavia, Iceland and Berlin (then the capital of the German Democratic Republic) as a lawyer and diplomat. He was Vice-Chairman of the U.S. delegation to the United Nations Conference on the Law of the Sea, participated in the negotiations on the International Space Station, was principal U.S. negotiator of several international agreements on seabed mining and was the U.S. representative to the United Nations Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space. He speaks French, German, and Serbo-Croatian. He was a frequent speaker at conferences and has testified before the U.S. Congress and commissions.

Otho’s career in the Foreign Service unknowingly prepared him for thriller writing later in life as he witnessed political corruption at every strata of society. While stationed in East Berlin during the cold war, the East German intelligence service (Stasi) operating on behalf of their Soviet masters, published a book entitled “Who’s who in CIA (correct title), translated into several languages and with wide distribution. This propaganda effort listed Otho and was intended to claim that he was a U.S. spy. (He was not). This was part of East German and ultimately Soviet, disinformation campaign to make the work of U.S. Foreign Service officers serving abroad more difficult.

Otho Eskin has also written plays including: Act of God, Murder as a Fine Art, Duet, Julie, Final Analysis, Season in Hell, among others, which have been professionally produced in Washington, New York and in Europe.

Otho is married to writer Therese Keane and lives in Washington, D.C.

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4.3 out of 5

657 global ratings

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R. Grossman

A great character and world; I couldn't put it down!

Reviewed in the United States on June 30, 2020

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carved out his own world and style, remarkably so for a debut novel. I read thrillers, mysteries, procedural stories, and others, and focus more on whether or nit it is a good read and less on what other books it resembles. This is a good read!

In fact, as I got into the story and the characters, I had to double check to see if I was reading the second in a series, rather than the first. The reader is dropped into a world of characters, all who seem to have the fleshed-out back-stories that you don’t usually see until the author has spent more time with them. There are personality traits, interactions, and offhand remarks that leave you wanting more from everyone you encounter.

The story pulls you in, and the dialog is terse and fast paced – while I said I wouldn’t compare to others, the Richard Stark (Donald Westlake) Parker novels come to mind. I was initially sent this book at no charge to read and provide an honest review. About a third of the way through the book I realized that formatting errors in the pre-publication edition I was reading were taking me out of the story, so I went on Amazon and bought the book, starting it over to enjoy the pacing and dialogue. That’s how much I liked it.

If you like books where the journey is as much fun as the destination, this is for you. I look forward to more from Marko Zorn and his world, although after this I will read anything that Mr. Eskin cares to write. It’s that good!

7 people found this helpful

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Stefan Grebe

Surprisingly good police thriller

Reviewed in the United States on December 10, 2020

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I usually don’t care for 1st person narration and even less for bent cops with some mysterious personal code of ethics and an enigmatic past, so I almost gave the book back to Amazon after the 1st 30 pages.
However, somehow the author managed to engage me and it ended up being a pretty good read.

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Matthew

A wonderfully entertaining debut novel.

Reviewed in the United States on July 10, 2020

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This a rollicking good read, an excellent diversion during these times of social distancing and sheltering in place. Eskin constructs a gripping story, weaving together several narrative strands, and combining elements of a mystery novel, a police procedural and a political thriller. The central case starts with the discovery of the body of a young woman floating in the Reflecting Pool in the National Mall in Washington, D.C. She turns out to have been a Special Agent of the Secret Service. Major subplots involve the rivalry between two local gang members and a scheme by a fringe group of ex-military men to assassinate the President. The subplots are resolved as the story draws to a close, and the identity of the killer of the woman in the pool is finally revealed in a startling surprise ending.

The one constant throughout the plot’s twists and turns is the book’s protagonist, who narrates the story in the first person. Marko Zorn is a homicide detective with the Washington Metropolitan Police Department. “Zorn” means “wrath”or “fury” in German, but Marko is less angry than pushy and stubborn, as well as very shrewd. He follows his own path, regularly disregarding warnings from Federal officials to stop his investigation. People above his pay grade continually complain about him.

In some ways Zorn resembles the cynical, hard-boiled detective in the tradition reaching back to Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler. But he is his own man. He does not carry a gun unless he has to And he may be a tough guy, but a tough guy with refined and very expensive tastes. Indulging them requires far more money than he could earn on a policeman’s salary. One has the sense that Marko, though not actually corrupt, skirts the law and does not always report dirty cash that comes his way when ihe does not absolutely have to. We learn the details: he wears Fennix shoes and a Vacheron Constantin watch, drives a 1971 lime-green Jaguar, owns a Chaim Soutine painting, and drinks Van Winkle 23-year-old bourbon. He can even be personable when he chooses, though never when interrogating a witness.

You might enjoy having a drink with him, thoughj you should probably avoid ordering his favorite libation, unless he’s picking up the tab. But you will certainly enjoy keeping him company through this very.entertaining debut novel. Let us hope that he will soon return in a future book in the series.

5 people found this helpful

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R. Lucar

The Reflecting Pool

Reviewed in the United States on April 21, 2021

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An average mystery novel about a detective in conflict, personally and professionally. Some dialogue is trite and without any real relevance to the actual story.

2 people found this helpful

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Melanie Sutherland

Definitely worth a read

Reviewed in the United States on September 28, 2020

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I enjoyed this crime-thriller quite a bit. Have been reading a lot in this genre since the pandemic shut-down, and Reflecting Pool is well-written and worth a read. I appreciated the author's style and structure - such as - this is obviously Book 1 in a series - and yet the lead character references past history with other characters in the novel, without wordy backstory. Each piece of the puzzle is revealed as the story continues. When does Book 2 come out?!

One person found this helpful

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Joe Stafford

Grit Backed by Action

Reviewed in the United States on January 5, 2024

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Washington’s underbelly exposed from the top down. When shock is less and becomes expected we’re in a declining world without order and accountability!!!

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Barton Edwards

Lost sleep over this one.

Reviewed in the United States on May 5, 2021

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Reflecting Pool is one of those books that I love to hate. That its that they are so good that I get into the "just one more chapter" syndrome. I consistently say just one more chapter and before I know it I am well into the night. They story grabbed me from the start - the characters were "real" and believable. The action was continuous and you never knew where it was going next. Loved the book and look forward to reading more by the author.

Reviewed in the United States on January 9, 2021

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First time with this author. Enjoyable, twist and turns you think you see coming, but it's fake right, go left. Like most, there are sequences that would not play out in reality. But, Marko is the hero and that is how that goes. Worth the read.

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Top reviews from other countries

Robert P. French

I loved this book

Reviewed in Canada on October 19, 2020

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Mario Zion is a great detective and a great, somewhat noir, character. The plot is complex with twists and turns and I loved every minute of it. I love that the book is written in the first person present tense.

Lagoon

Really strong. An absolutely blinding debut.

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on June 24, 2020

Verified Purchase

With such a catchy name for its protagonist, I was expecting great things from this book. I wasn’t disappointed. When a young female secret service agent is found dead in shallow water, Zorn knows straight off that he’s looking at a clumsily executed murder. As Zorn tries to run down the clues and speak to people that knew the victim, he is shut down at every stage. Told repeatedly that a bigger picture is at play and that Zorn needs to leave the investigation of the circumstances surrounding the death to the secret service, this just plays into Zorn’s hands and convinces him that powerful people are covering something up that they do not want to ever see the light of day.

Running parallel to Zorn’s investigations into the apparent murder, Zorn is handed a task by an aged female crime boss. There’s clearly history between Zorn and the old lady but the author doesn’t bog you down with a lengthy backstory; rather we are fed snippets that, I imagine, will form the basis of some background in future instalments. The story plays out nicely and there aren’t any ‘dead’ chapters. I liked everything about this book and would give it a ten if I could. Hopefully a sequel is already in the making.

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The Reflecting Pool (Marko Zorn Book 1) Kindle Edition

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