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.
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