"Blue Blood" by Damien Boyd

Acting Detective Inspector Superintendent Nick Dixon of the Avon and Somerset Police has a lot on his mind. It’s his wedding day; his wife-to-be, Detective Sergeant Jane Winters, is seven months pregnant. The wedding goes as planned, but that’s about all that goes as planned. A knock at his door that night is from his boss. A body has been found in the bay, and it’s a serving police officer. His partner is missing. Wedding day or not, Dixon has to deal with the case. 

Another case is added; two drug dealers had been found weeks earlier tortured and then killed. The dead and missing officers were involved. What ties the two cases together is the still-missing murder weapon – a 3D printed gun.

 

Adding to the threats of other deaths and someone printing guns is the investigation keeps leading the team back to the police. And Dixon has to cut through deceit, lies, and possible corruption to get to the truth.

 

Damien Boyd

Blue Blood is the 15^th Nick Dixon crime novel by British writer Damien Boyd, and it’s a thriller of a story. Boyd is a master at riveting the reader’s attention, bringing the novel to a fever-pitch close. 

 

Boyd uses his own experience as a legal solicitor and a member of the Crown Prosecution Service to frame his stories. And that knowledge and experience is telling. He understands how policemen do their work, how prosecutions operate, and what happens when a former tax lawyer (Dixon) brings his very unorthodox thinking to police work. 

 

Blue Blood keeps you guessing right up to the end, and not only who the killer is but also whether some of the good guys and innocent bystanders will survive. And it’s a “I have to get up and walk around” ending.

 

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.

My review of Dying Inside by Damien Boyd.

 My review of Carnival Blues by Damien Boyd.

My review of Death Message by Damien Boyd. 

My reveiw of From the Ashes by Damien Boyd.

Some Monday Readings

Winter and Summer on the Farm – Brian Miller at Notes from an East Tennessee Farmer.

 

Russian Roulette – Dominic Green at The Lamp on Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn’s Red Wheel.

 

London’s Wonderful East End – Spitalfields Life. 

‘Endurance Comes Only From Enduring’ – Cynthia Haven at The Free Press on Czeslaw Milosz.

"From the Ashes" by Damien Boyd

An elderly widow has been found dead in her home. The attending doctor diagnoses natural causes, but a rather clever young policewoman tells her partner that they’re to report any death of an elderly person, according to a note on the Avon and Somerset Police Department’s intranet. They do, and soon enough, Detective Chief Inspector Nick Dixon visits the scene. And he quickly sees that the woman has been strangled.  

A similar case had been reported in a neighboring police jurisdiction, that of an elderly man initially believed to have died of natural causes. It turned out that he, too, had been strangled. A regional task force is created, and Dixon is made an Acting Superintendent so that Avon and Somerset can keep control.

 

Both victims were teachers from the same seaside community. They taught at different schools but likely knew each other. But Dixon and his team, which includes his partner Jane Winters now six-months pregnant with their child, can’t find anything else that might be a connecting point or a reason for their deaths. That is, until there’s a third murder, and a chance remark leads to the first breakthrough in the case.

 

Damien Boyd

The victims played for the same bridge club team. And, 20 years before, they were all in Torquay for a tournament the night the tournament hotel burned down, killing three people. And it’s that discovery from which Dixon moves the investigation forward. 

 

From the Ashes is the 14^th DCI Nick Dixon mystery by British writer Damien Boyd, and it’s a clear winner in the series. Boyd keeps Dixon (and the reader) guessing as he builds the tension and then brings the story together in a thrilling conclusion.

 

Boyd uses his own experience as a legal solicitor and a member of the Crown Prosecution Service to frame his stories. And that knowledge and experience is telling. He understands how policemen do their work, how prosecutions operate, and what happens when a former tax lawyer (Dixon) brings his very unorthodox thinking to police work. 

 

Boyd has to do a 15^th entry in the series; we want to find out about Nick and Jane’s wedding, the baby, the politics at police headquarters. And we want another cracking good tale.

 

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.

 

My review of Dying Inside by Damien Boyd.

 

My review of Carnival Blues by Damien Boyd.

 

My review of Death Message by Damien Boyd. 

 

Some Thursday Readings

 

Nicholas Kristoff tries to figure out who destroyed the West Coast – Stephen Miller at The Spectator.

 

Yesterday’s Men: The death of the mythical method – Alan Jacobs at Harper’s Magazine.

 

The odd couple: Evelyn Waugh and Graham Greene – Jeffrey Meyers at The Critic Magazine.

 

Red Marks, a Dark Teesside short story by Glenn McGoldrick, is free on Amazon today.

 

What Comes After Liberalism? – John Horvat at The Imaginative Conservative. 

"Death Message" by Damien Boyd

Detective Chief Inspector Nick Dixon of the Avon and Somerset Police is considering leaving the force. In fact, he’s interviewing for jobs with law firms; he is a licensed attorney, after all, and he’s had it with the police. During his last case, the internal police watchdogs arrested him for murder and pitched him into a jail cell. It was a stitch-up, and Dixon was eventually cleared, but the experience has left a bitter taste. And no one has apologized. 

In the meantime, a new murder case has emerged. Parts of a body have been discovered in a river, and they turn out to belong to a private investigator who was formerly a police officer – and an officer with a penchant for manufacturing evidence. The former cop specialized in staking out plaintiffs suing for workplace injury compensation. Dixon’s fiancée and fellow officer Jane Winters is temporarily in charge, working for Dixon’s boss while Dixon himself is still on leave.

 

As the police probe what the former cop had been doing before his death, they discover what at first appears to be an unrelated mystery. An art student died, presumably a suicide with an insulin overdose. Dixon, a diabetic himself, suspects otherwise, convinces the coroner to adjourn the hearing with a verdict, and is back in the saddle as a DCI. And what he focuses on is that the former police officer was staking out a plaintiff who lived next door to the dead art student, and he disappeared the day of the girl’s funeral. And somehow all of this seems tied to a mystery street artist named Van Gard, whose spray paintings sell for hundreds of thousands of pounds (this an artist like Banksy). 

 

Damien Boyd

And then more deaths occur.

 

Death Message is the 13^th mystery novel in the Nick Dixon series by British author Damien Boyd, and it’s a crackerjack of a story. The riveting story wraps old crimes and new crimes so closely together, with so many twists and turns, that it takes the reader on a wild, and ultimately satisfying, rollercoaster ride. 

 

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. 

 

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.

 

My review of Dying Inside by Damien Boyd.

 

My review of Carnival Blues by Damien Boyd.

Some Thursday Readings

On trial for a question – Päivi Räsänen at The Spectator.

"Carnival Blues" by Damien Boyd

The Somerset Carnivals are the largest illuminated processions in the world. Detective Chief Inspector Nick Dixon of the Avon and Somerset is meeting his pregnant wife-to-be, Detective Sergeant Jane Winter, and good friend the coroner, Dr. Roger Poland. He arrives almost too late; a good part of the procession in Bridgewater has already paraded.  

Then comes the procession of a small carnival club, with members carrying squibs, fireworks attached to broom-like devices. One of the club members ignites his and is suddenly engulfed in flames, right in front of Dixon and his party. Dixon uses his coat to smother the flames; the man survives but is badly burned.

 

As it turns out, this was attempted murder; an accelerant was used. The man is an estate agent (what Americans would call a real estate agent). As Dixon and his police team investigate, they discover the victim was involved in a number of shady deals that cheated landowners – and providing a lengthy list of suspects. A second agent is killed, and a third disappears. Just as the police are making headway, Dixon is suspended, pending an investigation that he may have actually murdered a criminal who’d invaded his home. (It may sound like a case of arresting the victim that happens in places like New York City.)

 

Damien Boyd

But this is DCI Nick Dixon, and he’s not going to let something like an Internal Affairs review get in his way of solving the crimes.

 

Carnival Blues is the 12^th mystery in the DCI Nick Dixon series by British author Damien Boyd, and it bears all the trademarks of its predecessors – solid plotting, thrilling episodes, and police bureaucrats who seem more interested in stopping than helping investigations.

 

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. 

 

Carnival Blues is one entertaining 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.

 

My review of Damien Boyd’s Beyond the Point.

 

My review of Down Among the Dead by Damien Boyd.

 

My review of Dying Inside by Damien Boyd.

"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.