First of all, some of you might be pleased to hear that this post is not about a Scottish author! Don’t get too excited, though, because I’ve got another couple coming up shortly! The books and the character I’m writing about here are the creation of a former London solicitor called Damien Boyd and they feature a detective called Nick Dixon who is based in Burnham on Sea which I believe is located near Somerset.
This is another favourite of mine and, as is so often the case, I have no recollection of how I discovered the series. It could have been recommended to me or it might have stemmed from one of these searches which I have mentioned before where I simply enter a favourite author’s name and ask Google who else I should read if I like them. However, strangely enough, it wouldn’t surprise me if this series of book and the character of Nick Dixon didn’t appeal to you because, in a lot of ways, the books and the character are a bit different from those I have recommended up to now.
The stories are undoubtedly classic detective fiction and they fit into the genre without any difficulty. Dixon is a detective and the plots invariably involve the standard features of murder, kidnapping, extortion and all sorts of nasty criminals. However, if you’re looking for another Myron Bolitar, Elvis Cole, Lucas Davenport or even an Alex Cross, I’m afraid that Nick Dixon doesn’t really fit the bill! In fact, he is a fine upstanding former solicitor who has joined the police and done exceptionally well. He is a diabetic and his diabetes and the restrictions it places on his diet is a quite a prominent feature of the stories. Not too interesting, you might say but, in fact, the author uses it to quite good effect. Other than when he is catching criminals, he leads a quiet life living with his fiancee, also in the police, and his dog and his social life seems to extend to a quite pint in the local and an occasional fish supper!
However, despite all this and thanks to the skills of Damien Boyd, I find the backdrop to the series fine and the plots as absorbing as many of the other detective series I read. In fact, I think they tend to be quite a bit more intricate and involved as a lot of others and the whodunnit aspects quite difficult to spot. Nick is a likeable character and not as soft as first appears to be the case and, bearing in mind my views on the importance of characters as much as and even more than plots, I think he fits quite comfortably into my list of the top characters in detective fiction. Perhaps not a Spenser or an Aloysius Archer but right up there nonetheless.
If you read the series in order, you will begin to recognise the various characters and, in my view, begin to get involved in the various sub plots that run through the series. There are eleven books so far with the twelfth ‘Carnival Blues’ due out shortly and Boyd manages to produce one a year. I certainly look forward to them coming out and I find that they can be a nice contrast to the violence and shooting which are such common features of many of the other (usually American) detective novels I read. At the same time, don’t think for a moment that the Nick Dixon series is devoid of violence – there is plenty of it but it seems a little more restrained!
The geography of the series is also quite interesting to me as it is based in a part of the country that I don’t know very well. Although he comes from London, Boyd is clearly familiar with the area as he is with crime and the law, something which he must have gained during his experience as a Solicitor and when working with the Crown Prosecution Service. All in all, I think the books are a good read and a fine example of good detective fiction and Nick Dixon is an interesting and appealing character. However, as I said earlier, maybe not to everyone’s taste and, contrary to what is written in the link I highlighted earlier, I don’t think they are terribly fast paced. I do think they are worth investigating, though, and I recommend them to you wholeheartedly. Let me know what you think!