Beyond The Point by Damien Boyd

Beyond The Point by Damien Boyd
Publisher: Thomas & Mercer
Genre: Contemporary, Mystery/Suspense/Thriller
Rating: 3 stars
Reviewed by Fern

DI Nick Dixon is on the hunt for a vicious serial killer, following a trail of fingerprints and DNA across west Somerset.

When the body of a young woman is found on the building site of a nuclear power station, work grinds to a halt. The body bears all the hallmarks of yet another random murder at the hands of the escaped killer. Then Dixon finds a motive.

Fighting for his place on the Major Investigation Team, he soon uncovers a family’s desperate search for the truth, exposing a web of corruption and death that will shake the billion pound construction project to its very foundations. But who can be trusted when so much money is at stake?

Can Dixon find the killer under intense pressure from the top of government? And can he do it before anyone else has to die?

With a dangerous criminal on the loose there’s no rest for DI Nick Dixon. Despite knowing exactly who they are after, Dixon and his team have had very little success in tracing him this last month. Until the bodies start being uncovered and Dixon finally catches the scent – and he knows his quarry isn’t so far away after all.

I’ve been enjoying this series and while I don’t feel this is one of the author’s strongest books it is a very solid and enjoyable read. The plot is extremely straight forward and while the killer is the same nemesis as the previous book in this series, the author explains everything very well – without those annoying, massive info-dumps – and I feel readers who haven’t read any of the previous installments can still be clear on the plot and enjoy the book.

I do feel that readers looking for a heavily action-based story or something with a deep mystery might not be as pleased with this story as others. The killer is known from the very beginning – though readers wanting a more “who dun it” style of book might start with Dead Lock, the previous book where they do the more traditional mystery solving. But this is more of a police procedural manhunt style of story.

I was impressed though that a lot of the conflict came from within the police force and team themselves – things like the power and political plays between the media and the bureaucracy and the more internal police issues. That was quite a bit of the conflict and tension found in this type of story. I also really appreciated how about halfway in the manhunt started to link around another aspect of the mystery and there was still a puzzle to solve and more traditional mystery case to solve. So that was a really enjoyable aspect to the story as well.

I was pleased both Nick and Jane had a good amount of time together – both working and personal – in this story and I am very happy with how both of their character arcs are coming along. Readers looking for lots of bombs and chase and action might not find this story fits their needs. For a realistic and character driven story with plenty of police procedure and enough questions and tension to push the plot along this was a good story and one I enjoyed.