As the Crow Flies
Written by Damien Boyd
Narrated by Simon Mattacks
3.5/5
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About this audiobook
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.
The more Dixon learns about Jake’s life, the more he realises that Jake hadn’t been quite the man he remembered...and a lot of people could have wanted him dead. Once Dixon gets too close to the truth, those people will emerge from the shadows and kill to protect their secrets.
As the body count rises, Dixon bends the rules to breaking point to lure out a killer and unravel a conspiracy of silence that will rock the sleepy town of Burnham-on-Sea to its core.
As the Crow Flies is the electrifying first novel in the DI Nick Dixon Crime Series.
Revised edition: This edition of As the Crow Flies includes editorial revisions.
Damien Boyd
Damien Boyd is a solicitor by training and draws on his extensive experience of criminal law, along with a spell in the Crown Prosecution Service, to write fast-paced crime thrillers featuring Detective Inspector Nick Dixon.
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Titles in the series (12)
As the Crow Flies Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Kickback Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Dead Level Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Swansong Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Head in the Sand Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Heads or Tails Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Death Sentence Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Dead Lock Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Beyond the Point Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Dying Inside Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Down Among the Dead Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Carnival Blues Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
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Reviews for As the Crow Flies
70 ratings12 reviews
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Jake Fayter a former climbing partner of Detective Inspector Nick Dixon is killed in a fall in Cheddar Gorge.
Convinced that it was not an accident his inquiries uncover criminal activity involving drugs. - Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5This story is set in a small seaside town in Somerset called Burnham on Sea. Detective Nick Dixon is newly moved back to the area from London. He is investigating the death of his old Rock climbing partner Jake Fayter who fell in a climbing accident, it looks like there was foul play involved. It turns out Jake was a small time Drug dealer and Rare bird ggg stealer him and his accomplice Dan Hunter were doing this and sending the rare eggs to Dubai. Dan's body is found shot at the bottom of the River. Detective Nixon finds a secret Twtter account belonging to Jake he then flushes out the Murderer by pretending to be Jake's girlfriend Sarah. The Murderer of Dan Hunter is a Policeman called Steve Gorman who then shoots himself. It then turns out Jake actually killed himself and made it look like a Rock climbing accident. OK book far to much technical stuff about Rock climbing for my liking though.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A short book and I think a new author. Not bad. Will look for more from this writer.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5In the Prologue we are there when Jake Fayter falls from the Crow climb at Cheddar Gorge. The fall is so uncharacteristic of Jake who is Nick Dixon's former climbing partner that Jake's father John contacts Nick to ensure that the police carry out an investigation into whether this really was an accident.The book nearly lost me right at the very beginning: the details about climbing felt so very technical that I wondered whether I would persist.Dixon is newly appointed to the Avon & Somerset police and is currently involved in a case where funeral notices appear to be leading to burglaries. Nevertheless, on a Sunday, when he gets Jake's father's call, he heads over to Cheddar Gorge to see the scene of the accident himself. He decides that, for his own peace of mind, there is something to investigate.This is one of those novels firmly bedded in the 21st century: FaceBook, Twitter, mobile phones and the tracing of calls etc. I understood most of that but it did add to the technicality of the plot, and wouldn't suit every reader.There are now 9 titles in the series, and it will be interesting to read another to see what direction the author has taken. Here is the list from Fantastic Fiction.1. As The Crow Flies (2013)2. Head In The Sand (2013)3. Kickback (2014)4. Swansong (2015)5. Dead Level (2016)6. Death Sentence (2016)7. Heads or Tails (2017)8. Dead Lock (2018)9. Beyond the Point (2019)
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5OK, here we go...
I got this book for 99p on Amazon, and for 99p, it was well worth it, and I'd recommend it.
What I Liked
Climbing stuff. Now, I don't do climbing. I don't even stand on a chair if I can help it. But I always find it interesting to read a book where there's technical information about a subject of which I know little. It's obvious that the author is a climber, and climbing plays a part in the story. So I've learned some things about climbing that I didn't know before.
Pace. The story moved along at a fair clip, which kept me reading. I think I read this through in less than 24 hours.
What I was Less Impressed With
Characterisation. This is not a character-driven book. The characters felt rather lightly sketched - not cardboard, but as if the author had just done a couple of lines, but not bothered with the detail or colouring-in. I would have liked more detail.
The End. You'll know it when you get to it. And there's that other thing, once you've got there, you think back, and go "What was going on with that, then?" There are conventions with murder mysteries, and I think this book broke one of them - and not in a good "that's a cool trope inversion" way, more in a "you just short-changed your reader" way.
To be fair, the end spoiled it for me, because the end of a murder mystery is what ties it all together, and showcases the author's ability to write a mystery that's actually mysterious, while still giving the reader enough clues to guess what's going on - if they're smart enough. And in this book, there was that thing, which you'll know when you get to it.
Conclusion
A three-star read for me. I enjoyed it, and I'll probably even read more books in the series - and for 99p on Amazon, I count it 99p very well spent. But that thing and the sketchy characterisation stopped it getting more stars. - Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5An unusual take on the usual detective fiction, in context and location. Rock climbing is central to the plot, set in Burnham-on-Sea in Somerset where the author grew up apparently. DI Nick Dixon has moved to Somerset from London, returning to his roots and finds himself investigating the suspicious death of an old climbing friend in Cheddar Gorge. Although I guessed who one of the villians was from some heavy hints, it didn't really spoil it too much. However the motivations of some of the leading characters wasn't explored in any depth, leaving them a bit one-dimensional. Nonetheless Nick Dixon is clearly a character with potential as several sequels have been published.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5unexpected ending; plot centers around the theft of falcon eggs sold illegally in Dubai
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Great book a quick read police procedural novel but interesting and great location of cheddar and burnhan-on-sea its about a dead climber and the investigation about his death.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5An enjoyable holiday read although not a book that I was unable to put down occasionally. The use of climbing technology and phrases was a bit tiresome as I have no interest in that sport. However the story was good and hasn't put me off reading further books in this series.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5It's not bad nor great. It's a quick read, a bit predicable plot wise until the shock end. Don't get bogged down in the rock climbing references but just enjoy a British crime book. I received a copy through Goodreads First Reads in return for a review.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5I am giving all of these DI Nick Dixon books three stars. I don't like them all that much but other readers probably will.For me these books rely too much on coincidence and too much on DI Dixon being smarter than everyone around him. In this book he tells the police tech squad how to do their business and then finds out something that the professionals don't. Then he breaks a code. Then he tells his team to bring lights along to a night exercise. He is rude to his staff with his constant carping and shouts orders to a junior officer across a crowded staff room.Mr. Boyd is not a careful writer. DI Dixon speaks of police matters in front of witnesses. Dixon, who supervises a team, reviews hours and hours of CCT footage instead of delegating the job to others. And Dixon, making a baseless assumption that there is only one gun in play, risks himself and another police officer by refusing to ask for backup while undertaking a dangerous operation.The birds on the cover art are vultures, not crows.I received an advance review copy of "As The Crow Flies: DI Nick Dixon Series Book 1" by Damien Boyd (Amazon Publishing/Thomas & Mercer) through NetGalley.com.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5This book proved to be a reasonable read, but it could have been so much better.,The basic premise was sound enough: Detective Inspector Nick Dixon has transferred down to the Somerset force after a few years in the Met, and is generally enjoying the slower pace of life. However, he hears of the death of Jake Fayter, a close friend from his youth and with whom he had regularly gone mountaineering. Dixon is particularly surprised to learn that Fayter had died in a climbing accident on one of the challenging peaks around Cheddar Gorge. Further investigation uncovers some unpleasant truths about Jake Fayter.Unfortunately, from seeming to have the workings of a sound novel safely in the palm of his hand, Damien Boyd lets it slip away. The characterisation is flimsy, and the dialogue lacks any hint of plausibility. I guessed the identity of the culprit very early on, and while I would like to think that this demonstrated my supreme intelligence and infallible skills of perception, I think that a more likely explanation was that it was simply lamentably predictable.Still, on the plus side, I did get this novel free from the Kindle Store!