“The Dark Road” by Luke Davis

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.

“Gravely Concerned” by Rhys Dylan

It begins with a funeral. DCI Evan Warlow of the Wales Police is attending the funeral of his ex-wife, Denise, who’d died from complications of alcoholism. His two sons are there, one traveling all the way from Australia. The relationships are uneasy; much of the family had been splintered because of the divorce and Denise’s drinking problem. Then Warlow’s phone buzzes. 

A six-year-old boy has vanished from his family’s home. His mother and sister had been distracted with a fire at an adjoining property. The fire was extinguished, but the boy was gone. It isn’t just that there are few clues; absolutely no clues can be found anywhere. The fire department determines that the fire had been deliberately set. It appears it was staged to facilitate a kidnapping.

 

Rhys Dylan

Gravely Concerned is the fifth in the DCI Evan Warlow series by Welsh writer Rhys Dylan. The story is compacted into less than 24 hours, and it’s told to show how Warlow and his team move from zero clues and motive to ultimate resolution. 

 

Dylan has published 19 novels in the DCI Evan Warlow series, of which Suffer the Dead is the fourth. A native Welshman educated in London, Dylan wrote numerous books for children and adults under various pen names across several genres. He began writing the DCI Warlow series in 2021. He lives in Wales.

Dylan fills Gravely Concerned with tension, relieved by the police team’s camaraderie and the humor it engenders. He also allows the reader to know some of what’s happened, which cleverly both relives and adds to the tension. This is a story of every parent’s nightmare, told well and expertly. 

Related: 

The Engine House by Rhys Dylan.

Caution: Death at Work by Rhy Dylan. 

Ice Cold Malice by Rhys Dylan.

Suffer the Dead by Rhy Dylan.

 

Some Monday Readings

 

Novel Wisdom and Epic Truth – Joseph Pearce at The Imaginative Conservative.

 

The Defense of the Upper Chesapeake: Maryland’s First Trial in the Revolutionary War – Drew Palmer at Emerging Revolutionary War Era.

 

The West’s Strange Genius – Michael Jensen at Lost Arts.

 

‘Feminine Hands’: The Hidden History of Women in Medieval Book Culture – Joel Miller at Miller’s Book Review.

 

Aleksandr Solzhenitzen: “We Have Ceased to See the Purpose” – Daniel Sundahl at The Imaginative Conservative.

“The Pembroke Castle Murders” by Stephen Puleston

A minister is found dead inside his church in the Welsh town of Pembroke, killed with some kind of hammer. As DI Caren Waits and her team at the West Wales Police Service investigate, they discover that nothing is ever what it seems, even the world of a minister. 

The minister had inherited a large estate from an elderly aunt. He had a half-brother and half-sister, who now stood to inherit. A fellow minister had been passed over for an appointment as cathedral dean. A local man had accused the minister of molesting his son. The suspects seem like they’re falling out of the trees.

 

In the meantime, Waits herself is waiting on the outcome of legal negotiations with her dead husband’s “second” wife, a woman who bore him a child. Waits herself has a young son. The woman has made a claim on the dead husband’s estate. The detective had had no idea of this second family.

 

Stephen Puleston

The investigation has almost too many suspects. Promising leads evaporate. Alibis seem airtight. And then the lawyer handling the estate is himself murdered, followed soon by a third death.

 

The Pembroke Castle Murders is the fourth of the DI Caren Waits series by Welsh writer Stephen Puleston. It’s a solid police procedural story, with Waits and her team plugging away, pounding the pavement, and tracking down ever lead. And in the end, they stage a rather thrilling trap.

 

Puleston publishes three series of Welsh police detective stories. Detective Inspector Ian Drake is with the North Wales Police Service, Detective Inspector John Marco is with the South Wales Police Service, and now Detective Inspector Caren Waits is with the West Wales Police Service. The author originally trained and practiced as a; solicitor/lawyer. He also attended the University of London. He lives in Wales, very close to where his fictional heroes live and work.

 

Related:

 

The Paxton’s Tower Murders by Stephen Puleston.

 

The Tenby Harbour Murders by Stephen Puleston.

 

The Swansea Marina Murders by Stephen Puleston.

 

My review of Written in Blood.

 

My review of A Time to Kill.

 

My review of Another Good Killing.

 

My review of Brass in Pocket.

 

My review of Worse than Dead.

 

My review of Against the Tide.

 

My review of Devil’s Kitchen.

 

My review of Dead Smart.

 

My review of Speechless.

 

My review of A Cold Dark Heart.

 

My review of A Cold Dark Heart.

 

My review of Dead and Gone by Stephen Puleston.

 

My review of Time to Die by Stephen Puleston.

 

My review of Stone Cold Dead by Stephen Puleston.

 

My review of Looking Good Dead by Stephen Puleston.

"Island Games" by Luke H. Davis

DI Gareth Benedict and his team are assigned to help police the Island Games, a sports event held every two years and attracting teams in some 13 sports from various islands, and not only those around the United Kingdom. This year, the island of Anglesey off the coast of Wales is the host, and teams are coming from as far away as the Falkland Islands in the South Atlantic. 

The reader knows, before the police forces do, that the games have also attracted two assassins. We don’t know yet their intended targets, but we will. 

To continue reading, please see my post today at Dancing Priest.

Some Wednesday Readings

 

Learning to Dine with Sinners – Andrew Klavan at The New Jerusalem.

 

We’ll Catch Up Sometime – short story by Br. Seth Bauer at The Imaginative Conservative.

“The Swansea Marina Murders” by Stephen Puleston

Detective Inspector Caren Waits of the West Wales Police Service and her team are called to the marina in Swansea. The body of a young woman has been found floating in the marina docking area; the post-mortem will show she’d been brutally strangled. Her identity is quickly determined: a university student who also worked at a marina pub. The site of her murder takes a bit longer to discover, and the crime scene investigators find it. 

The victim shared a flat with three other students, and everything seemed normal on the surface. That is, until the investigators find five thousand pounds in cash stowed in her room, a connection to a former boyfriend who tended to the violent, and an affair with one of her professors who doesn’t seem to be as forthcoming as he should about his own background. Complicating the case is that the victim’s phone is missing and presumably tossed into the marina waters.

 

Then a second murder happens; a friend of the first victim is found with her head bashed by a winch from a yacht. In this case, the victim’s small rooms are found ransacked; someone was looking for something and apparently didn’t find it. Waits and her team discover that there’s a possible connection to a spate of burglaries aboard marina boats and residences; someone had very good information when yacht owners would be sailing and away from home, or out of town and away from their boats.

 

Stephen Puleston

The Swansea Marina Murders is the third in the DI Caren Waits series by Welsh writer Stephen Puleston. It is a classic police procedural story, accented by Waits having to deal with the settling of the estate of her dead husband, the discovery that he had another relationship and child, and trying to raise her own young son with an almost impossible work schedule (parent to the rescue!). 

 

Puleston publishes three series of Welsh police detective stories. Detective Inspector Ian Drake is with the North Wales Police Service, Detective Inspector John Marco is with the South Wales Police Service, and now Detective Inspector Caren Waits is with the West Wales Police Service. The author originally trained and practiced as a; solicitor/lawyer. He also attended the University of London. He lives in Wales, very close to where his fictional heroes live and work.

 

Puleston has been setting the keyboard keys afire. This third DI Caren Waits novel is the third published in 2025, and a fourth one was recently issued. A fifth one is set to be published next year. Like its two predecessors, The Swansea Marina Murders is very methodically told; the focus is on police procedure. All three have been entertaining reads, and I’m looking forward to reading the fourth, The Pembroke Castle Murders.

 

Related:

 

The Paxton’s Tower Murders by Stephen Puleston.

 

The Tenby Harbour Murders by Stephen Puleston.

 

My review of Written in Blood.

 

My review of A Time to Kill.

 

My review of Another Good Killing.

 

My review of Brass in Pocket.

 

My review of Worse than Dead.

 

My review of Against the Tide.

 

My review of Devil’s Kitchen.

 

My review of Dead Smart.

 

My review of Speechless.

 

My review of A Cold Dark Heart.

 

My review of A Cold Dark Heart.

 

My review of Dead and Gone by Stephen Puleston.

 

My review of Time to Die by Stephen Puleston.

 

My review of Stone Cold Dead by Stephen Puleston.

 

My review of Looking Good Dead by Stephen Puleston.

 

Some Monday Readings

 

When a House Is Not a Home – Matthew Walther at Commonplace.

 

Why we love Jane Austen more than ever after 250 years – Henry Oliver at The Common Reader.

 

“Amahl and the Night Visitors”: The Classic Christmas Opera – Michael De Sapio at The Imaginative Conservative.

"Suffer the Dead" by Rhys Dylan

Things, like serious crime, are a bit slow in DCI Evan Warlow’s area of Wales, so he and his team are loaned (“seconded”) to a part of Wales a bit further north. A department that’s short-handed for illness and other reasons needs help. A well-known sheep farmer and his son have disappeared, and evidence at the scene of their disappearance suggests foul play. 

The investigating officers are on unfamiliar turf, dealing with people they don’t know. But procedure is known, and Warlow soon finds an almost bewildering array of possible motives and suspects. And at least initially, the crime appears to be tied into a spike of sheep rustling that’s been plaguing the area. That’s what the missing farmer and his son were investigating – a call from a fellow farmer who spotted lights on a mostly unused road.

 

Warlow continues to wrestle with his own demons, not the least of which is his status as HIV-positive, caused by the bite of a suspect in an old case. And his ex-wife has been hospitalized, in serious condition caused by her chronic alcoholism.

 

Rhys Dylan

All of these happenings and issues begin to play together, as Warlow starts to close in on the killer. That’s assuming, of course, that the bodies of the victims are found. 

 

Suffer the Dead by Welsh writer Rhys Dylan is a terrific read, fast-paced, full of the unexpected, and grounded in routine police procedure. But there’s nothing routine about the way DCI Warlow’s mind works, and that’s what will ultimately solve the crime.

 

Dylan has published 19 novels in the DCI Evan Warlow series, of which Suffer the Dead is the fourth. A native Welshman educated in London, Dylan wrote numerous books for children and adults under various pen names across several genres. He began writing the DCI Warlow series in 2021; The Engine House was published in 2022. Dylan lives in Wales.

 

Related: 

The Engine House by Rhys Dylan.

Caution: Death at Work by Rhy Dylan. 

Ice Cold Malice by Rhys Dylan.

 

Some Monday Readings

 

The Sistine Chapel: Michelangelo’s Daring Artistic Triumph – Jason Clark at This is the Day.

 

Murders for November – Jeremy Black at The Critic Magazine.

 

St. Martin in the Fields and Historical Maps of Southwark and City Ward – A London Inheritance.

 

Scooby Doo and the American Ethos – Liel Leibovitz at The Free Press.

"The Tenby Harbor Murders" by Stephen Puleston

A period drama is being filmed in the Tenby Harbour area in Wales. Soap opera star Noah Voce is starring in the film, as is his actress wife and a younger woman with whom Voce had had an affair years before. Voce is found dead in his trailer, his head bashed in. 

Detective Inspector Caren Waits, fresh from success in solving the Paxton Tower murders, finds herself and her team grappling with movie star egos, production pressures to keep filming, and a growing list of suspects. The dead man apparently had plenty of admirers but few friends.

 

Waits also runs up against a new experience – being stalked as she works and picks up her young son at school. And she gets disconcerting news from her attorney. Her husband, who died in an automobile crash, apparently had a relationship with a woman who is now demanding a share of his estate. Ad she may have a legitimate claim.

 

Stephen Puleston

The Tenby Harbour Murders is the second in the DI Caren Waits series by Welsh author Stephen Puleston. It’s a solid, entertaining story and helps to anchor was is turning out to be a successful detective series. The third in the series is The Swansea Maria Murders. (Interestingly enough, all three have been published this year, and a fourth is in the works.)

 

Puleston publishes three series of Welsh police detective stories. Detective Inspector Ian Drake is with the North Wales Police Service, Detective Inspector John Marco is with the South Wales Police Service, and now Detective Inspector Caren Waits is with the West Wales Police Service. The author originally trained and practiced as a; solicitor/lawyer. He also attended the University of London. He lives in Wales, very close to where his fictional heroes live and work.

 

DI Caren Waits solves crimes in both the old-fashioned and new-fashioned ways – solid, often slogging, police procedure plus the assistance (and sometimes confusion) of DNA and computer technologies. The Tenby Harbour Murders is a well-done mystery, and it will keep you guessing until the end.

 

Related:

 

The Paxton Tower Murders by Stephen Puleston.

 

My review of Written in Blood.

 

My review of A Time to Kill.

 

My review of Another Good Killing.

 

My review of Brass in Pocket.

 

My review of Worse than Dead.

 

My review of Against the Tide.

 

My review of Devil’s Kitchen.

 

My review of Dead Smart.

 

My review of Speechless.

 

My review of A Cold Dark Heart.

 

My review of A Cold Dark Heart.

 

My review of Dead and Gone by Stephen Puleston.

 

My review of Time to Die by Stephen Puleston.

 

My review of Stone Cold Dead by Stephen Puleston.

 

My review of Looking Good Dead by Stephen Puleston.

 

Some Monday Readings

 

The Berry Family’s Founding Myth – Jeffrey Bilbro at Plough.

 

A New Environmentalism? – Stephen Hayward at Law and Liberty.

 

How to Keep Your Soul in a Corporate Job – Alex McCann at The Free Press.

 

“Yesterday”: Sometimes a Song – Anthony Esolen at Word & Song.

 

The celebrity guide to selective outrage – Sarah Idan at The Spectator.

“Tides of Death” by Luke H. Davis

I was a fan of the Detective Cameron Ballack mystery series, set in St. Charles County, Missouri, part of metropolitan St. Louis. Author Luke H. Davis published three novels about the wheelchair-bound detective, and I thoroughly enjoyed all three. Davis moved on to a theological series aimed at young adults and also a book that tackled tough issues from a Biblical perspective. But I missed the detective series. 

No longer. Leaping across the Atlantic, Davis has a new detective, DI Gareth Benedict of the North Wales Police, or Heddlu Gogledd Cymru. (I googled it to identify the force; Wales has four geographic forces, and I don’t speak or read Welsh). This first in the series is entitled Tides of Death, and it’s a winner of a story.

 

Benedict has been on personal leave for several months, trying to deal with the death of his partner in an operation neither of them thought was well planned, but orders are orders. His DCI pays a visit to tell him it’s time to return. A new detective sergeant has been appointed to take his partner’s place, and the team needs Benedict’s leadership, not to mention his detective skills. Their unit is based on St. David’s Island, and there’s also likely some concern that an absent DI might suggest consolidating police services and closing their station.

 

Benedict returns. He’s surprised to learn his new DS is Rachel Griffith-Thomas, a transfer from Liverpool. The DCI had cleverly not mentioned it was a woman. They start off on the wrong foot and manage to stay that way through most of the novel. Using their conflict is a neat way to develop both personalities, the interactions with the rest of the team, and the story itself.

 

Luke H. Davis

And no sooner do Benedict and Griffith-Thomas meet than they find they’re dealing with what initially looks like an accident or a suicide. A student at a rather exclusive school has been found on a nearby beach at the bottom of a cliff. But Benedict has his doubts, and the post-mortem bears that out. This was murder. And Benedict and his team soon find themselves finding their way through one entangled academic web.

 

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.

Tides of Death is the first in the series; Island Games will be the next to be published. If this quality story is the introduction to a new detective series, it will be difficult to wait for No. 2.

Related: 

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 Wednesday Readings

 

The 100 Greatest British Novels – Karen Swallow Prior at The Priory.

 

Can We Still Do America? – Spencer Klavan at The New Jerusalem.

 

Can Raymond Chandler & John Steinbeck Help Us Now? – Ralph Gaebler at The Imaginative Conservative.