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Rock climbers can't afford to make careless mistakes. But Detective Inspector Nick Dixon's former climbing partner, Jake Fayter, died doing just that. Or so it seems. Dixon suspects foul play, but his only leads are unreliable accounts of something odd happening in Cheddar Gorge seconds before Jake fell.
DI Nikki Galena: A police detective with nothing left to lose, she's seen a girl die in her arms, and her daughter will never leave the hospital again. She's gotten tough on the criminals she believes did this to her. Too tough. And now she's been given one final warning: make it work with her new sergeant, DS Joseph Easter, or she's out.
Jack's a retired ex-cop from New York, seeking the simple life in Cherringham. Sarah's a Web designer who's moved back to the village to find herself. But their lives are anything but quiet as the two team up to solve Cherringham's criminal mysteries. This compilation contains episodes 19 - 21: "GHOST OF A CHANCE": Every Halloween, the supposedly haunted Bell Hotel hosts its famous 'Ghost-Hunters Dinner', complete with scary stories, spooky apparitions and things that go bump in the night. But this year's event ends in a terrifying accident, and suddenly everyone wonders... Is there a real ghost loose in the hotel?
Detective Chief Inspector Ryan retreats to Holy Island seeking sanctuary when he is forced to take sabbatical leave from his duties as a homicide detective. A few days before Christmas, his peace is shattered, and he is thrust back into the murky world of murder when a young woman is found dead amongst the ancient ruins of the nearby priory. When former local girl Dr. Anna Taylor arrives back on the island as a police consultant, old memories swim to the surface, making her confront her difficult past.
The body of a young woman is found on the streets of East London, in the shadow of the City's gleaming towers. No ID on her, just hard-earned cash. But there is no doubting the ferocity of the attack. DI Simon Fenchurch takes charge but, as his team tries to identify her and piece together her murder, they're faced with cruel indifference at every turn - nobody cares about yet another dead prostitute.
First a shooting, then a grisly discovery on the common.... Police partners, D.I. Calladine and D.S. Ruth Bayliss race against time to track down a killer before the whole area erupts in violence. Their boss thinks it's all down to drug lord Ray Fallon, but Calladine's instincts say something far nastier is happening on the Hobfield housing estate. Can this duo track down the murderer before anyone else dies and before the press publicise the gruesome crimes?
Rock climbers can't afford to make careless mistakes. But Detective Inspector Nick Dixon's former climbing partner, Jake Fayter, died doing just that. Or so it seems. Dixon suspects foul play, but his only leads are unreliable accounts of something odd happening in Cheddar Gorge seconds before Jake fell.
DI Nikki Galena: A police detective with nothing left to lose, she's seen a girl die in her arms, and her daughter will never leave the hospital again. She's gotten tough on the criminals she believes did this to her. Too tough. And now she's been given one final warning: make it work with her new sergeant, DS Joseph Easter, or she's out.
Jack's a retired ex-cop from New York, seeking the simple life in Cherringham. Sarah's a Web designer who's moved back to the village to find herself. But their lives are anything but quiet as the two team up to solve Cherringham's criminal mysteries. This compilation contains episodes 19 - 21: "GHOST OF A CHANCE": Every Halloween, the supposedly haunted Bell Hotel hosts its famous 'Ghost-Hunters Dinner', complete with scary stories, spooky apparitions and things that go bump in the night. But this year's event ends in a terrifying accident, and suddenly everyone wonders... Is there a real ghost loose in the hotel?
Detective Chief Inspector Ryan retreats to Holy Island seeking sanctuary when he is forced to take sabbatical leave from his duties as a homicide detective. A few days before Christmas, his peace is shattered, and he is thrust back into the murky world of murder when a young woman is found dead amongst the ancient ruins of the nearby priory. When former local girl Dr. Anna Taylor arrives back on the island as a police consultant, old memories swim to the surface, making her confront her difficult past.
The body of a young woman is found on the streets of East London, in the shadow of the City's gleaming towers. No ID on her, just hard-earned cash. But there is no doubting the ferocity of the attack. DI Simon Fenchurch takes charge but, as his team tries to identify her and piece together her murder, they're faced with cruel indifference at every turn - nobody cares about yet another dead prostitute.
First a shooting, then a grisly discovery on the common.... Police partners, D.I. Calladine and D.S. Ruth Bayliss race against time to track down a killer before the whole area erupts in violence. Their boss thinks it's all down to drug lord Ray Fallon, but Calladine's instincts say something far nastier is happening on the Hobfield housing estate. Can this duo track down the murderer before anyone else dies and before the press publicise the gruesome crimes?
When a young boy discovers the body of a woman beneath a thick sheet of ice in a South London park, Detective Erika Foster is called in to lead the murder investigation. The victim, a beautiful young socialite, appeared to have the perfect life. Yet when Erika begins to dig deeper, she starts to connect the dots between the murder and the killings of three prostitutes, all found strangled, hands bound, and dumped in water around London.
When the body of a man is discovered in woodlands outside Manchester, a ten-year missing-persons investigation can finally be filed away. But this was no ordinary death: gagged, bound and buried alive, he was the victim of a sophisticated and sadistic killer. And there is something else that has the National Crime Agency puzzled. A single character carved into a nearby tree.
Detective Inspector Ian Hamilton is no stranger to Edinburgh's darkest crimes. Scarred by the mysterious fire that killed his parents, he faces his toughest case yet when a young man is found strangled in Holyrood Park. With little evidence aside from a strange playing card found on the body, Hamilton engages the help of his aunt, a gifted photographer, and George Pearson, a librarian with a shared interest in the criminal mind.
First-year detective Kathleen Doyle is a plucky Irish redhead of humble origins and modest means. Chief Inspector Michael Acton is her antithesis: a British lord turned cop. He's tall, handsome, and enigmatic - to a fault. He also has a knack for solving London's most high-profile crimes. Acton selects Doyle out of the newbie squad to partner with him on a series of investigations because she always knows when someone is lying - a trait that comes in handy when interviewing suspects and witnesses.
When LAPD detective Michael Gideon and his police-dog partner, Sirius, are assigned to the Special Cases Unit (SCU), Gideon knows their work lives will be anything but ordinary. SCU gets the cases no one else wants, the unusual and bizarre crimes that need special handling and special investigators. When a high-school student is found crucified in a local park, Gideon and Sirius must face up to the gruesome tableau and the motivation behind the murder. Complicating matters is a nightmare from their past, the scars of a terrible fire that nearly cost them their lives.
Two hundred years ago a loyalist family fled to England to escape the American War of Independence and seemingly vanished into thin air. American genealogist Jefferson Tayte is hired to find out what happened, but it soon becomes apparent that a calculated killer is out to stop him.
From the best-selling author of Cry Baby, the beginning of a brilliant and gripping police procedural series set in Liverpool, perfect for fans of Peter James and Mark Billingham. A woman at home in Liverpool is disturbed by a persistent tapping at her back door. She's disturbed to discover the culprit is a raven and tries to shoo it away. Which is when the killer strikes. DS Nathan Cody, still bearing the scars of an undercover mission that went horrifyingly wrong, is put on the case.
Selchester Castle in 1953 sits quiet and near-empty, its corridors echoing with glories of the past. Or so it seems to intelligence officer Hugo Hawksworth, wounded on a secret mission and now reluctantly assuming an altogether less perilous role at Selchester.
Quitting her job as a high school science teacher to join the Seattle Police Department was an easy decision for Tracy Crosswhite. Years earlier, what should have been one of the happiest days of her life instead became her worst nightmare when her younger sister, Sarah, disappeared. After the murder trial, while her family disintegrated, Tracy turned her heartbreak and her lingering questions into a passion for justice.
London, 1850: A young Charles Lenox struggles to make a name for himself as a detective...without a single case. Scotland Yard refuses to take him seriously and his friends deride him for attempting a profession at all. But when an anonymous writer sends a letter to the paper claiming to have committed the perfect crime - and promising to kill again - Lenox is convinced that this is his chance to prove himself. The writer's first victim is a young woman whose body is found in a naval trunk, caught up in the rushes of a small islets in the middle of the Thames.
Northumberland, 1809: A beautiful young heiress disappears from her locked bedchamber at Linn Hagh. The local constables are baffled and the townsfolk cry "witchcraft". The heiress' uncle summons help from Detective Lavender and his assistant, Constable Woods, who face one of their most challenging cases.
Captain Lacey is asked by Peter Thompson of the Thames River Police to help him investigate a cold case - the murder of a woman found near the docks Thompson patrols. The investigation was sidelined, considered unsolvable, but Thompson has long wished to find her killer. Captain Lacey joins him in the hunt, entering a part of society that is closed to outsiders. Meanwhile, he must deal with his daughter's debut and more developments in his new domestic life, including an anonymous blackmailer who's out to ruin Lacey any way he can.
In the early hours of Christmas Eve, the wife of parliamentary candidate Tom Perry is brutally murdered in an apparent burglary gone wrong.
With the by-election campaign about to start in earnest and the festive season in full swing, torrential rain brings with it flood warnings on the Somerset Levels.
Suspended on full pay and transferred to the cold case unit, Detective Inspector Nick Dixon is languishing on the sidelines as the investigation into Elizabeth Perry's murder unravels and the floodwaters rise.
Returning to duty, Dixon is convinced that the answer lies hidden in Tom Perry's political life, but why was Elizabeth the target and not her husband? The more Dixon uncovers, the further he is from finding the truth....
Dead Level is the fifth novel in Damien Boyd's addictive DI Nick Dixon Crime Series.
I noticed in this series that the first book had 173 pages and the page count got higher with each book, with this one having 354. However, it was like the author forgot how to use verbal expressions in this book, as he went along: no exclaimed, muttered, mumbled, yelled, replied, and the like. In this book he thought “said” was enough, since that one word was used 757 times. Don’t think for a minute that one word used that many times isn’t noticeable. It drove me nuts. And, since the next book, due out in October, is 352 pages long I’m not sure I’ll read it. To me, that’s just the lazy way to write, but that’s just my opinion.
Having said that, this was a pretty good mystery: who paid to have a pregnant Elizabeth Perry killed? And why? Oh, and that was just the first murder. And then there was the shooting by the police who are usually unarmed. Where the US refers to it as a “bulletproof vest” it’s called a “stabbing vest” in this series.
Needless to say, I was totally surprised to find out who paid for the killing of Elizabeth and why. WOW!
Again, no romance, no kissing, no nothing. These were all murder/suspense/mysteries NOT romances.
There was swearing and the F-bomb was used 12 times.
Over all, it was a quite the mystery, but not as good as a couple of the others’ from this series.
As to the narrator: I enjoyed every second of all 5 books because of Napoleon Ryan’s narration. He did so many voices, and they were all wonderful.
ALL 5 BOOKS WERE FREE READ & FREE LISTEN. IT DOESN'T GET ANY BETTER THAN THAT.
1 of 1 people found this review helpful
The DI Nick Dixon detective series Book 5 is the best yet. My only complaint is with narrator Napoleon Ryan. He does an excellent job with male and female voices, but he does some male voices too loudly and some female voices too softly. It makes the volume control difficult to set.
5 of 7 people found this review helpful
Hard to stay with when the two main characters speak with sexy breathless tones. They sound like they just had a passionate encounter in between murders. irritating to listen to.
narrator was very understandable! story was entertaining. enjoyed listening to this murder mystery. waiting for the next in the series.
After listening to a disturbing and depraved book by another author (J.A. Konrath), I needed a book that wouldn't cause me troubled dreams and uneasy sleep. Damien Boyd writes books that are easy listening and don't cause nightmares. I have read every book in the DI Nick Dixon series and have enjoyed them all.
The best so far by Damien Boyd. What added to it was the Fantastic narration by Napoleon Ryan. WELL DONE !
Excellent story but didn't like the male voice interpretation. Female voice same each character, terrible.
4 of 4 people found this review helpful
Almost gave up on this book due to the annoying way that the narrator gave all his female voices the same voice!!!!
3 of 3 people found this review helpful
Worst narration I have heard. Caricature coppers and a dull hero. two female officers whose voice is never more than sultry whisper. and the continual he said, she replied, he yelled is just so unnecessary.
3 of 3 people found this review helpful
The story line was a bit poor,and it was not helped by very poor naration.
3 of 3 people found this review helpful
Is there anything you would change about this book?
Firstly, let me make this clear; Damien Boyd is a great writer and the 'Nick Dixon' stories are really good. Better still if you know the area in which they are set. So; I have no truck at all with either the author or the storyline/characters etc.
However; who in the name of all that's holy picks the narrators for these things? This guy - Napoleon Ryan - seems to voice all of his characters in different joke voices. Nick Dixon for instance seems to be a mixture of Sam Spade and a local radio newsreader from the 1980s. The breathy voice of the female performer is almost indistinguishable between characters...
The voice of Harry Unwin actually made me laugh out loud; a 1950s 'B' movie villain seems to be the inspiration here!
All of this is terribly sad. It tempered my enjoyment of the book so much that I had to skip great swathes of it in order to stop listening to the truly terrible voices.
Damien Boyd - if you ever get the chance to a) read this review and b) choose your narrator, PLEASE choose a different one. And if you can't find a good one, I'll do the whole thing for expenses only. I can't offer a professional history in voiceovers, but I can promise one thing; I can DEFINITELY do a better job than this joker..
Seriously; Vladimir Putin and Pat Butcher ( yes I know she's not real ) would have done a better job...
Who might you have cast as narrator instead of Napoleon Ryan?
ANYone. Seriously. Ron Pickering would have been a better option. John Prescott could have done a better job.
Seriously? How about someone with a modicum of talent?
Was Dead Level worth the listening time?
Not at all. Read the book and get some actual pleasure from the story.
Any additional comments?
I wish I'd known I could return the book...
3 of 3 people found this review helpful
An excellent story which builds up the suspense without revealing the conclusion until the final chapter. Hopefully, we will not have to wait too long for another in the series.
3 of 3 people found this review helpful
Would you consider the audio edition of Dead Level to be better than the print version?
Not better, but a great alternative when driving or walking.
Any additional comments?
Another winner from Damien Boyd, great story line. I love his books, living in France it really reminds me of home, I love all the mention of local places. Damien writes great stories without over complicating and manages to keep your interest right the way through. He has not written a bad book yet, roll on the next one. This was the first audible version of his books I have purchased and was not disappointed! Napoleon Ryan read the book very well and got the characters spot on.
3 of 3 people found this review helpful
This is not the best story I've heard, by some way. It seemed a bit clunky in characterisations. However this was as nothing compared to the narrator. Napoleon Ryan has a rather deep voice which led to many of the male minor characters having what I can only describe as cartoonish voices. How he managed the female voices I'm not sure; either his voice was digitally altered, or a female narrator was brought in but not credited. Either way, it's a cheat.
The story had some potential, but the characterisations and narration will prevent me hearing another Boyd story or anything spoken by Ryan.
2 of 2 people found this review helpful
What didn’t you like about Napoleon Ryan’s performance?
The intonation was frequently completely wrong and made some of the sentences meaningless. The women's voices (done by a female narrator) were all breathy and very similar to each other. None of this was helped by tedious and poorly written dialogue. I managed to skim over it in the book (the audio download came with kindle unlimited) but I had to listen to it in excruciating detail on the narration.
You didn’t love this book--but did it have any redeeming qualities?
The story rattles along at a fair old pace.
1 of 1 people found this review helpful
loved all of DCI Dixon's stories and especially the audio narrated by Napoleon definitely worth a listen/read
1 of 1 people found this review helpful
Each book in the series just gets better and better. Narration of characters spot on and leads your imagination deep into the story.