The story starts with a flashback. Detective Inspector Gareth Benedict of the North Wales Police is on a holiday with his wife Heather. And he watches in his horror as his adventure-loving wife is soaring in the sky, paramotoring, until the motor fails, and she falls more than 300 feet into the sea, killed instantly.
Flash forward seven years, Benedict and his team, based on St. David’s Island, are called to Reno Medical Logistics to investigate the death of one of the company’s financial executives. His body has been found in his office, seated and slumped over his desk. At first, it appears he’s the victim of suicide. But there’s no suicide note, and no explanation for the wound on his head.
And down the investigation trail the police officers go. And it soon becomes clear that there’s nothing straightforward about the case. The man had apparently been investigating unusual activity involving three supply locations in southern France, but it’s unknown what that activity might have been. There’s a connection to the man’s ex-wife, a cafe owner Benedict knows well and who isn’t thrilled to be asked questions. The investigation also develops a sub-theme of romance; if Benedict hasn’t figured it out yet, we have – there’s more than a professional relationship developing with Rachel Griffith-Thomas, his detective sergeant.
Then, in the middle of the investigation, Benedict discovers an unknown and unwanted truth about his dead wife, and it nearly wrecks him and the investigation.
Luke Davis
The Dark Road is the third DI Gareth Benedict mystery by Luke Davis. It’s both a solid and entertaining police procedural. It’s also a flat-out good story. Davis is an American, but the Gareth Benedict series read like they’ve been written by a lifelong and native Welshman. The place names, the highway directions, and the general sense of these stories seems so Welsh that I have to keep reminding myself that Davis lives in a suburb of St. Louis.
Davis teaches at Westminster Christian Academy in St. Louis and chairs the Bible Department there. He’s also taught at schools in Louisiana, Florida, and Virginia. He describes himself as “Presbyterian body, Lutheran heart, Anglican blood, Orthodox spirit,” all of which have served him well in writing the Cameron Ballack mysteries. He has published three Ballack mysteries, Litany of Secrets (2013), The Broken Cross (2015), and A Shattered Peace (2017), and Joel: The Merivalkan Chronicles Book 1 (2017). He blogs at For Grace and Kingdom.
The Dark Road is a great story; that’s the simple fact of it. And I’m glad to learn that a fourth one, All Snares of the Enemy, is in the works.
Related:
My review of Tides of Death by Luke H. Davis.
My review of Island Games by Luke H. Davis.
Redemption: The Church in Ancient Times by Luke H. Davis.
Reign: The Church in the Middle Ages by Luke H. Davis.
Reform: The Church at the Birth of Protestantism by Luke H. Davis.
Renewal: The Church That Expands Outward by Luke H. Davis.
Reading a Novel that Stars Your Hometown.
My review of Litany of Secrets.
My review of The Broken Cross.
My review of A Shattered Peace.
My review of Tough Issues, True Hope by Luke Davis.
Some Tuesday Readings
An Offering of Breathing Poetry – poem by Rob Jones at Cultivating Oaks Press.
Winners and Rankings of the Great American Poetry Competition – Society of Classical Poets.
Loneliness and solidarity – Padraig O Tuama on The Dance: Poems by Christian Wiman.
The Sun – poem by David Whyte.
‘A Poet at the Tower’ and Other Poetry – Michael Paul at Society of Classical Poets.
Pink – poem by Carol Berrett at Every Day Poems.
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