"Dying Inside" by Damien Boyd

Nick Dixon is now a DCI, or detective chief inspector. His boss at the Avon and Somerset Police is pressuring him to aim higher, where a bigger job at regional headquarters awaits. Dixon, though, has a bias for action and on-the-ground investigations.  

After some of the difficult murder cases he’s solved, helping a farmer furious over his sheep being shot with a crossbow sounds a bit beneath Dixon. But, to escape the seminars at headquarters, Dixon is ready for anything. But he soon realizes that the sheep were target practice; someone is perfecting their crossbow aim for victims of the two-legged kind. And those victims begin to appear.

 

Helped by police constable Nigel Cole, Dixon is soon investigating a murder by crossbow, and then a second one. Little seems to connect the victims. One was an investment broker who was helping people legitimately (barely) avoid taxes, until a law was changed and made retroactive. The second victim was a bureaucrat in the government’s fraud division, whose offense was that his name appeared on all the official notices. 

 

Dixon and Cole learn that nothing is what it seems, and that appearances are invariably deceiving. They story they unfold is told in a rather riveting way in Dying Inside, the eleventh DI Nick Dixon mystery by British author Damien Boyd.

 

Boyd uses his own experience as a legal solicitor and a member of the Crown Prosecution Service to frame his stories, and then infuses considerable research in just the right way. In the novels, Dixon had been a promising young barrister, until he chucked it all and joined the police. As it is, he’s one of the youngest detective inspectors in the Avon and Somerset police force; he’s also the most brilliant at solving cases which look unsolvable. 

 

Dying Inside has the trademark Events and developments of the series – the police detective who looks at everything differently from his colleagues; an intricately woven plot that is expertly unfolds for the reader; and a thrilling end punctuated by a surprise development (DCI Dixon does not like loose threads at all). In eleven books, Boyd had not once failed to entertain with a well-told, well-written story. 

 

 

Related:

My review of Damien Boyd’s As the Crow Flies.

 

My review of Damien Boyd’s Head in the Sand.

 

My review of Damien Boyd’s Kickback.

 

My review of Damien Boyd’s Swansong.

My review of Damien Boyd's Dead Level.

 

My review of Damien Boyd’s Death Sentence.

 

My review of Damien Boyd’s Heads or Tails.

 

My review of Damien Boyd’s Dead Lock.

 

My review of Damien Boyd’s Beyond the Point.

 

My review of Down Among the Dead by Damien Boyd.

"Down Among the Dead" by Damien Boyd

The Battle of Sedgemoor (1685) has the distinction of being the last battle ever fought on English soil. James Scott, the Duke of Monmouth, had rebelled against his uncle, James II and was aiming to seize the throne. The terrain was boggy, foggy, and crisscrossed by streams and ditches. The battle, such as it was, was joined when a shot was unexpectedly fired, warning the royalist troops. What is called a battle ended in wholesale slaughter. Many of those who survived were transported as slaves to the West Indies. 

The battle has long held the interest of British mystery writer Damien Boyd, who uses the battle and its possible modern repercussions in the tenth D.I. Nick Dixon story, Down Among the Dead. Boyd writes great mysteries, and this one has his trademarks of a gripping, engaging narrative and a thrilling climax.

 

Fifteen years previously, Daniel Parker was convicted of being the serial killer known as The Scytheman. Several people, mostly young men, had disappeared, but a mother and her teenaged daughter were the victims whose murders resulted in Parker’s apprehension and conviction. D.I. Dixon’s chief was the young arresting officer, but he was never convinced that Parker was the real killer. Yet the killings had stopped after Parker’s apprehension. All of the killings were in the lands adjacent to the old Sedgemoor battleground. 

 

Damien Boyd

Parker is making an appeal for a retrial, his lawyer submitting new evidence that wasn’t available at the time. It’s unlikely, though, that the high court will allow a new trial. That is, until D.I. Dixon, put in charge of looking at all the evidence, discovers that Parker may indeed be innocent. And then a body of one of the missing teens is found by an archaeological crew. The problem is that the post-mortem shows the body had been buried at most nine months before. Parker couldn’t have done it, since he was in prison.

 

The Scytheman still walks. And soon there’s another murder.

 

Boyd uses his own experience as a legal solicitor and a member of the Crown Prosecution Service to frame his stories, and then infuses considerable research in just the right way. In the novels, Dixon had been a promising young barrister, until he chucked it all and joined the police. As it is, he’s one of the youngest detective inspectors in the Avon and Somerset police force; he’s also the most brilliant at solving cases which look unsolvable. Like this one.

 

Down Among the Dead is an excellent police procedural with an added bonus – telling the story of the Battle of Sedgemoor.

 

Related:

My review of Damien Boyd’s As the Crow Flies.

 

My review of Damien Boyd’s Head in the Sand.

 

My review of Damien Boyd’s Kickback.

 

My review of Damien Boyd’s Swansong.

My review of Damien Boyd's Dead Level.

 

My review of Damien Boyd’s Death Sentence.

 

My review of Damien Boyd’s Heads or Tails.

 

My review of Damien Boyd’s Dead Lock.

 

My review of Damien Boyd’s Beyond the Point.

 

"Beyond the Point" by Damien Boyd

Detective Inspector Nick Dixon of the Avon and Somerset Police has a bad habit. His intuition, his guesses, his sense of how investigations are going and should go inevitably turn out to be right.

This isn’t a characteristic that endears you to colleagues and superiors, who may be more concerned about police politics and career advancement.

Now Dixon is tracking, or trying to track, a serial killer, who’s left a few bodies in his wake and is intent on taunting the police detective. The investigation leads into a wholly different kind of case, one seemingly bungled by Dixon’s old police foe, and then into a case of bribery and corruption in the construction business. And Dixon keeps sensing and guessing correctly.

Damien Boyd

Beyond the Point by British writer Damien Boyd is the ninth Dick Nixon mystery, and it may well be the best one yet – which is saying a lot, because there hasn’t been a miss in the entire series. Boyd uses his own experience as a legal solicitor and a member of the Crown Prosecution Service to frame his stories, and then infuses considerable research in just the right way. In this story, for example, the reader will learn a lot about big construction projects, like bridges and nuclear power plants, but will never feel like this is a data dump to impress with how much the author knows.

What Boyd has done in these mysteries is no small feat. He’s mixed intriguing premises, a diabetic hero who often has to stifle himself when he’s dealing with superiors, the ongoing romance between Dixon and policewoman Jane Winter, and the fascination of solid police work punctuated by Dixon’s tendency to try the unexpected and the unorthodox. It’s no surprise that the detective often finds himself in trouble at police headquarters.

Beyond the Point is an exciting, well-researched, and well-written mystery.

Related:

My review of Damien Boyd’s As the Crow Flies.

My review of Damien Boyd’s Head in the Sand.

My review of Damien Boyd’s Kickback.

My review of Damien Boyd’s Swansong.

My review of Damien Boyd's Dead Level.

My review of Damien Boyd’s Death Sentence.

My review of Damien Boyd’s Heads or Tails.

My review of Damien Boyd’s Dead Lock.

"Dead Lock" by Damien Boyd

A 10-year-old girl goes missing, and the police force of the Avon and Somerset CID foes into hyperdrive. The girl’s parents are divorced; the mother’s an addict who’s living with a registered sex offender. But every lead is frittering away into nothing. Detective Sergeant Jane Winter is called back from vacation in the Lake District, where she was mountain climbing with Detective Inspector Dick Nixon. He’s not called back, because he’s still recovering from near-death in a burning factory on his last case (Heads or Tails). 

When a second girl goes missing, the frenzied pace of the police ratchets up even further. Roger Poland, director of the police pathology lab, demands that Dixon be called back – the second missing girl is Poland’s granddaughter. 

And lawyer-turned-policeman Dixon does indeed return, and immediately begins to turn the investigation upside down. A lot of people on the force don’t like Dixon, but he gets results and solves cases. That may be why they don’t like him.

Dead Lock is the eighth Nick Dixon police detective story by British writer Damien Boyd. Just when I think Boyd couldn’t possibly top the last story, he manages to do exactly that. 

Dixon is an unconventional policeman. He thinks differently. He points out what should be obvious (like how to disguise a license plate and divert attention to the wrong suspects). Just because a child is missing doesn’t mean the parents shouldn’t be questioned, and closely. He pays attention to documents and knows how to read a contract. And he’s not above calling in some off-the-wall resources. 

Damien Boyd

He’s also diabetic, recovering from that close brush with death, and wondering if his girlfriend Jane Winters wants to marry him after all. 

As the investigation progresses (it’s actually compressed in just a few days), Dixon and the police are drawn toward the lock and dam system of southern England. Too many of the people involved are also involved with boats, marinas, and canals. 

Dead Lock is another great mystery story in the Nick Dixon series. Boyd can’t write these fast enough. 

Related:

My review of Damien Boyd’s As the Crow Flies.

My review of Damien Boyd’s Head in the Sand.

My review of Damien Boyd’s Kickback.

My review of Damien Boyd’s Swansong.

My review of Damien Boyd's Dead Level.

My review of Damien Boyd’s Death Sentence.

My review of Damien Boyd’s Heads or Tails.

Top photograph: The Caen Hill Locks in southern England by Arpingstone via Wikimedia. Used with permission.

“Heads or Tails” by Damien Boyd

Detective Inspector (DI) Nick Dixon of the Avon and Somerset CID is helping Environment Authority officers catch eel poachers in a tidal estuary. The poachers are indeed caught, but what’s also discovered is a paneled truck, partially submerged in the estuary mud, with a driver who looks dead but isn’t. He’s handcuffed to the steering wheel, and his foot is handcuffed to the floor. No one has a metal cutting tool, and Dixon, the Environment Authority officers, and the Coast Guard have to watch the man drown as the tide comes in.

The autopsy shows the dead man had some gruesome injuries – part of his skull cut out and slashing wounds to his neck. The injuries are almost exactly like the ones a number of victims of a serial killer in Manchester had many years before. The killer may be back, or someone with inside knowledge of the Manchester killings may be a copycat. But why? And how?

Then there’s a second killing. And a suicide atop a long-buried body.

Heads or Tails is Damien Boyd’s seventh Inspector Nick Dixon crime and suspense novel. It’s just as action-packed as its predecessors; when Dixon is around, a lot of things happen, and few of them good. Gangsters, organized crime, serial killers, police corruption, murders, Dixon’s run-ins with superiors (he has a tendency to do that) – Heads or Tails is chock full of things happening.

Damien Boyd

Boyd wraps Dixon’s personal life into the main story. He’s diabetic, and needs to make sure he’s prepared and avoids the foods he needs to avoid. His live-in girlfriend, police Sgt. Jane Winters, is dealing with the finding of her birth mother; because of her own police work, she also plays a crucial role in the story because she knows how to access the “dark web,” the internet most of us never see (and probably don’t want to).

With Heads or Tails, Boyd is maintaining a consistently high quality of mystery story. It’s a fast-paced, enthralling read.

Related:

My review of Damien Boyd’s As the Crow Flies.

My review of Damien Boyd’s Head in the Sand.

My review of Damien Boyd’s Kickback.

My review of Damien Boyd’s Swansong.

My review of Damien Boyd's Dead Level.

My review of Damien Boyd’s Death Sentence.

Top photograph by George Hodan via Public Domain Pictures. Used with permission (A hillside filled with heather is involved in a critical scene in the mystery).

“Death Sentence” by Damien Boyd

Detective Inspector (DI) Nick Dixon of the Avon and Somerset CID has been called to yet another crime scene, this one a red-brick pillbox constructed in World War II as a coastal defense against the expected German invasion. Amid the graffiti, dirt, empty soda cans, and other accumulated trash is the body of an older man, hands tied behind his back. The body has no identification.

Assisted by Detective Constable (DC) Louise Willmott and the other members of his team, Dixon begins the often tedious business of identifying the victim. He turns out to be a veteran of the Falklands War of 1982 and a military hero, awarded the Victoria Cross. He had something of a troubled past, with two businesses ending badly and eventually returning to his elderly mother’s house to live.

As Dixon delves deeper into the man’s history and life, he begins to find connections to an ongoing court battle between five Falkland veterans and the military. The fight is about asbestos exposure, which the five experienced when ordered to tear apart Argentine buildings erected to fight the war. And the officer who ordered the five to tear the buildings apart was the dead man. And then the case gets really complicated.

Damien Boyd

Death Sentence by British writer Damien Boyd is the sixth in the DI Nick Dixon crime series, and it crackles with as much action and excitement as the previous five. Boyd, a former solicitor turned crime writer, puts his knowledge of the law, court procedures, and police procedures to good use in these stories, and they are filled with realistic detail.

Death Sentence is the latest Nick Dixon novel to be published, and Boyd has managed to keep the quality high throughout the books. The seventh in the series, Heads or Tails, is scheduled for publication in October. And that's great news!.

Related:

My review of Damien Boyd’s As the Crow Flies.

My review of Damien Boyd’s Head in the Sand.

My review of Damien Boyd’s Kickback.

My review of Damien Boyd’s Swansong.

My review of Damien Boyd's Dead Level.

Top photograph: a pillbox on the British coast built as a defense during World War II.