Detective
Inspector (DI) Nick Dixon of the Avon and Somerset CID is celebrating his
release from hospital (and recovery from a stab wound in his shoulder). With
him are Detective Constable (DC) Jane Winter and senior pathologist Roger
Poland. While they’re eating, an argument breaks out at a nearby table and
almost turns violent. Dixon intervenes, and calms a young man, on compassionate
leave from Afghanistan to attend his younger brother’s funeral.
Hours later, the
young man takes his father and sister hostage, and insists on talking with
Dixon. He believes his brother wasn’t killed by an aggressive horse at the
stable where he worked, which another police investigation determined, but was
in fact murdered. Dixon meets with the young man, begins to check the
investigation, and gets Roger Poland to check the post-mortem of the victim.
The brother turns out to be right – the dead man was indeed murdered.
 |
| Damien Boyd |
Kickback is Damien
Boyd’s third DI Nick Dixon police procedural mystery, and it’s a riveting
read (I read in almost one sitting). The investigation takes Dixon and Winter (who
are more than just work partners) deep into illegal horserace gambling and how
it’s done online, Albanian gangsters, cocaine smuggling, and pillars of society
turning out to have more than a few cracks.
Boyd is the author of six Nick Dixon mystery
stories. He has extensive experience in criminal law in the UK and
worked for a time with the Crown Prosecution Service, and infuses that
experience throughout his stories.
Kickback shows
Boyd’s development with his craft and narrative control, and is the best DI
Nick Dixon yet.
Related:
Top photograph by George Hodan via Public
Domain Pictures. Used with permission.
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