Readers in the west country – and no doubt elsewhere, have been on pins for the last few months waiting for June 4th, and no doubt a few seconds past midnight on that date they were plunging straight into a book they’d been waiting with such excitement for. It’s #14 in a series of police procedurals written by Damien Boyd, featuring Nick Dixon who first appeared as Inspector Dixon in ‘As the Crow Flies‘ in 2015.
Rock climbers can’t afford to make careless mistakes. But Detective Inspector Nick Dixon’s former climbing partner, Jake Fayter, died doing just that. Or so it seems. Dixon suspects foul play, but his only leads are unreliable accounts of something odd happening in Cheddar Gorge seconds before Jake fell.
The more Dixon learns about Jake’s life, the more he realises that Jake hadn’t been quite the man he remembered…and a lot of people could have wanted him dead. Once Dixon gets too close to the truth, those people will emerge from the shadows and kill to protect their secrets.
As the body count rises, Dixon bends the rules to breaking point to lure out a killer and unravel a conspiracy of silence that will rock the sleepy town of Burnham-on-Sea to its core.
The latest book is ‘From the Ashes‘, and I’m afraid I consumed it very quickly, just too good to put down. However, after a breathing space from the exciting and gripping gallop, I will be reading it again. Damien’s plots, although, complicated, aren’t confusing even though at times they are mystifying, before all is revealed in an unexpected but believable outcome. He quite often places his plots in an interesting context.
One of my favourites, ‘Dead Level‘ has a murder committed and the crime scene on the Somerset Levels, hidden by the flood water when the area was inundated by heavy rain. We live just north of the Levels, so our news was full of the disaster which caused such terrible damage.
During December 2013 and January 2014 heavy rainfall led to extensive flooding with over 600 houses and 17,000 acres (6,900 ha) of agricultural land, including North Moor, Curry and Hay Moors and Greylake, affected. The villages of Thorney and Muchelney were cut off with many houses flooded. Northmoor Green, which is more commonly known as Moorland, was also severely affected. Flood relief activities included the use of rescue boats and the army. High volume pumps were brought in from the Netherlands and installed at several points to try to relieve the flooding.
(Wikipedia)
Another favourite, ‘Down Among the Dead’, has many scenes around Weston Zoyland, on and near the site of the Battle of Sedgemore (1685). There is a massive new nuclear power station bring built on the coast, Hinkley Point C, and that is the setting for murder and mystery in ‘Beyond the Point‘; ‘Carnival Blues‘ kicks off with a gruesome death during Bridgwater’s famous carnival.
I’m veering away from the present, so back to Damien’s most recent novel, ‘From the Ashes‘:
A retired teacher is found dead in her Somerset home on a cold January night. At first glance, it is a routine unexplained death and a simple referral to the coroner, until a neighbour reports an unscheduled visit from an occupational therapist an hour before the body was discovered.
Detective Chief Inspector Nick Dixon is convinced the elderly woman has been strangled—a cause of death confirmed by the pathologist—and a murder investigation is launched.
More victims are soon found—a second retired teacher who died in eerily similar circumstances in Devon. Then a possible third victim is exhumed in Dorset.
Leading a regional task force, Dixon must find the connection between the victims. As the coincidences mount, he begins to fear he has stumbled on something premeditated and deeply sinister—a serial killer targeting the elderly in their own homes.
You can find Damien’s books on Amazon, and find out more here: https://www.damienboyd.com/
My featured image is of Damien reading from his latest, ‘From the Ashes‘ at a lunch he hosted at Nick Dixon’s favourite restaurant, the Zalshah in Burnham-on-Sea.
Lois Elsden 