A young man wakes in a shallow grave in a wood. He manages to escape being buried alive but disappears from hospital before he can be interviewed properly by police. His friend Max is still missing and the police call the cadaver dogs in to search the woods…
Death in Bacton Wood is the third book in the Norfolk Murders series. I have previously read and reviewed the first two books in the series (Death on Cromer Beach and Death at Paradise Park) but it is not necessary to have read the earlier books and there are no spoilers.
DS Ashley Knight is ready for the next stage in her career and also moving forward with her relationship with a colleague. But her focus in entirely on her new case. The opening chapter is pretty horrific as a man wakes to find he has been buried alive. Thankfully he escapes but the police are frantic to locate his friend who may not have been so lucky.
Ashley and her team find themselves working against an Italian family with criminal gang connections. Drugs, people trafficking and gang rivalry all add to the potential motives and suspects for the police to investigate. Most of the book is written in the present day to show the developments in the case but there are some very emotive chapters set in the past that show the desperate struggle of migrants to reach the UK.
The pace of the plot is rapid and the chapters are reasonably short. This maintains the tension and I liked that the twists kept surprising me and sustained the mystery until the end. The writing style brought events and characters to life and there are some big emotional scenes that were utterly gripping.
Death in Bacton Wood is a tense and engaging police procedural.
Death in Bacton Wood
A family’s secrets lie buried. The time has come to uncover the truth…
When a mud-splattered man staggers from Bacton Wood with a terrifying tale about being buried alive, DS Ashley Knight and her team are called in to investigate. Soon, another victim is found, and more men are missing – all with connections to the well-known Vialli family.
The Major Investigation Team find themselves attempting to untangle a case that stretches from Eastern Europe through to North Norfolk. Along with rookie detective, the whip-smart Hector Fade, Ashley is in a race against time trying to help a family who seem determined to take matters into their own hands. And when Ashley suspects there is a department rat, the stakes get even higher.
As the evidence continues to point in different directions, and as new victims are uncovered thick and fast, Ashley and Hector begin to fear they have finally met their match in a killer too ruthless and clever to be caught.
I was born in 1973 in Peterborough and lived there until I was 20, attending The King’s School in the city. I then began a rather nomadic existence, living and working all over the country and various parts of the world.
I found myself returning to Peterborough many times over the years, usually when things had gone wrong. It was on one of these occasions that I met my partner about 100 metres from my back door whilst walking a dog. Two children swiftly followed. I’m still a little stunned by the pace of it now.
Fifty Years of Fear book was started a long time ago but parenthood and then after working in sales management all my life, i randomly spent four years as a prison officer. Ironically it was the four a.m. feed which gave me the opportunity to finish the book as unable to get back to sleep I completed it in the early morning hours.
It’s surprising for me to realise I’ve written ten books now. There are two strands, one where the books concern lives affected by prison, and then my detective series starring DI John Barton. The first Barton book, The Snow Killer hit the coveted number one spot on KOBO, with the second and third in the series not far behind.
