Author: Damien Boyd
Genre: adult, mystery, thriller, crime fiction, suspense, contemporary,
Published: January 20, 2015 (first published October 7, 2013)
Publisher: Thomas & Mercer
Purchase: Amazon | B&N | Book Depository
The discovery of a severed head in a golf course bunker triggers a frantic race to find a serial killer that brings the town of Burnham-on-Sea to a standstill.
A connection is made with a series of unsolved murders harking back to the 1970s, and Detective Inspector Nick Dixon finds himself caught in a race against time that takes him the length and breadth of the country.
The brutal killing of an elderly man raises the stakes and, as he closes in, Dixon begins to question whether he is chasing one serial killer or two.
Head in the Sand is the second novel in the highly acclaimed DI Nick Dixon Crime Series.
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you can read my review of the first book in the DI Nick Dixon series here. this review DOES NOT contain any spoilers from the first book so there's nothing to worry about.
Head in the Sand is another gripping mystery with DI Nick Dixon by Damien Boyd.
The Mystery! The first few chapter opens with a crime scene. A severed head, a decapitated and burned body inside a car. Boyd's choices of words were really great. It made me visualize the whole scene - the grotesque body of a 70-ish victim.
Solving the Case. Head in the Sand turned out to be more intriguing than As the Crow Flies. Given the mystery, Dixon, Jane, and the rest of the team started going deeper into the murder and still not getting the whole point of it. Dead ends. But after looking into a very similar murder that happened years ago, it started to pick up its pace. It became more intriguing. Thrilling. Gripping.
It's really interesting how things were put together starting from a murder of an old woman to a murder that occurred years ago. Unlike As the Crow Flies, Head in the Sand really knows what it's doing. It set everything into place, played around with all the evidences on hand, dug deeper into the case in hand, and solved multiple murder cases in one. I was totally sucked into the case.
As I mentioned in my review of As the Crow Flies, while it did introduced DI Nick Dixon well, it failed to developed him. It failed to go deeper into his character. Head in the Sand didn't really satisfied me in terms of further delving into Dixon's life but this book did foreshadowed that Dixon will have a struggle later on in the series. Aside from the impending development on Dixon, DC Jane Winter is finally right beside Dixon. Setting aside their romantic relationship, she greatly reminded me of Robin Ellacot (from Cormoran Strike) - very keen, always on the move, always have something in mind.
Revelation. I honestly thought that Dixon will set up an elaborate way of capturing the suspect but turns out he put together everything right at the last minute. It was a very thrilling read right there. He was so worried about everything, he kept on checking if everyone involve in safe, then all of a sudden he realizes who the murderer was. It wasn't a sudden genius moment for Dixon, it was more like he was thinking deeply about everything then all of a sudden something crossed his mind and things started making sense THEN he runs for the life of the next possible victim.
The murderer was a bit expected (there certainly is no guessing until half of the book). It reminded me of my hunch when I was reading the Cuckoo's Calling by Robert Galbraith. It right there in my face, quite sure of it but doubted myself. The whole investigation was very interesting and it gave justification to who the murderer is (unlike those loose evidences in As the Crow Flies).
OVERALL, Head in the Sand is another thrilling crime fiction by Damien Boyd. It's a MUST READ for those who like crime fiction. It's a quick read, very fast-paced, quite graphic, and involves a very great detective.
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What I Like: (1) the fast pacing, (2) the investigation process, (3) the team of Nick Dixon and Jane Winter, (4) the murder case, (5) Damien Boyd's graphic writing - he really made me visualize the scene, the locations, (6) the revelation, (7) the foreshadowing on Dixon's struggle
What I Didn’t Like: (1) still the lack of development on Dixon (but really, it's there but it's not the focus of the book, it's like just 5% of the entire book)
~this book was provided in exchange for an honest review~
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