Two crime novels

As usual I'm behind with reviews so this is a brief catch-up post.

My first book for June is Head in the Sand by Damien Boyd. This is my 16th. book for Bev's Calendar of Crime challenge, covering the November category of 'Primary action takes place this month' (I know this because there was talk of bonfire night and fireworks).

The severed head of a middle-aged woman is discovered on a golf course near Burnham-on-sea in Somerset. It's been placed, quite meticulously, on the sand in a bunker. An anonymous phonecall links the case with two unsolved murders, in exactly the same set of circumstances, back in the late seventies and early eighties. It's clear that specific people are being targeted but why are the murders so far apart in time? DI Nick Dixon and his team have a race against time to discover who's doing this and why, because if they're not careful - and speedy - others will die in a quite horrific manner.

This is the second in the author's 'Nick Dixon' series, set fairly locally to me, in Somerset. I read the first book in April and quite liked it, enough to reserve book 2 from the library anyway. And I liked this one a bit more. It's a classic police procedural plot and is thus quite pacey so you need your wits about you, especially to remember who's who. My addled brain is not good at remembering huge casts of characters and what their relationship is to each other. It's a strong storyline though, a lot going on, and all linked to a cold case from 40 years ago. Some of it is hard reading, awful medical mistakes and so on, things that could easily still happen and do, so it's very sobering. But it's a delight to have a series set so close to where I live, to recognise place names and know exactly where they mean, particulary as that part of Somerset is not all that well known and doesn't harm from a bit of exposure. I shall read on in this series, definitely.


Death in Captivity by Michael Gilbert was one of several BLCC books kindly sent to me by Elaine at Random Jottings. It qualifies for Becky's World at War challenge under the category, 'A book focussed on The War'. It also qualifies for Bev's Calendar of Crime challenge under the July category of 'Primary action takes place in this month'.

It's 1943 and a good number of mainly British officers are incarcerated in a POW camp in northern Italy. Tunneling out is an obsession so there is a committee in charge of it who organise the diggers and say when escapes can take place. One major tunnel is close to being finished and two officers go down to continue the work. It's a hard, dangerous undertaking but they're still shocked to discover the dead body of one of the camp's inmates at the end of the tunnel. It seems the roof caved in and smothered him. But did it? The Greek officer concerned was suspected of being a collaborator and thus highly unpopular. On closer examination by a doctor it's suspected that he might not have died in the tunnel after all... so who did kill him and why?

I can see why the BLCC have reissued a handful of Michael Gilbert's books. This one was very nicely written and gave a very good flavour of life in a POW camp. The boredom, the desire to escape, desperation in some cases, the claustrophobia, the way in which certain people get on everyone's nerves, the sacrifices that are sometimes essential, and the ingenuity of the inmates to find a way to do impossible things. I found it all fascinating. I had no idea who had done the deed or why until the very end. There was also a nice twist at the end which I didn't guess at all. Plus, I really did enjoy the travelling aspect of this towards the end, it reminded me of Eric Newby's similar journey in Love and War in the Apennines, one of my all-time favourite books. Now looking forward to reading more of Michael Gilbert's work.

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