Damien Boyd Books in Order
Explore Damien Boyd books in order, with short summaries, series guides for Nick Dixon and Bob Willis, and simple help on where to start reading.
Last updated: June 8, 2026
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Publication Order
18 books
As the Crow Flies
by Damien Boyd
2013
When Nick Dixon's former climbing partner dies in a fall at Cheddar Gorge, the accident does not ring true. Digging into Jake Fayter's life, Dixon uncovers secrets, old loyalties, and a killer ready to strike again.
Head in the Sand
by Damien Boyd
2013
A severed head in a golf bunker throws Burnham-on-Sea into panic. Nick Dixon links the case to unsolved murders from decades earlier and races across the country to stop a killer before more bodies appear.
Kickback
by Damien Boyd
2014
A trainee jockey's death looks like a freak accident at a Somerset stable until his brother takes hostages and demands the truth. Nick Dixon is pulled into betting scams, buried grudges, and a murder someone wants forgotten.
Swansong
by Damien Boyd
2015
After a sixth-form student is murdered, Nick Dixon goes undercover at her boarding school as a trainee teacher. The case turns painfully personal as he digs into secrets at the school and ghosts from his own past.
Dead Level
by Damien Boyd
2016
On Christmas Eve, the wife of a parliamentary candidate is killed in what looks like a burglary gone wrong. With floodwaters rising on the Somerset Levels, sidelined Nick Dixon suspects politics, not chance, is driving the case.
Death Sentence
by Damien Boyd
2016
An elderly man's body is found in a wartime pillbox beside the canal, with no clear motive and no obvious suspect. Nick Dixon's search leads from rural Somerset underground to a dangerous cover-up far higher up.
Heads or Tails
by Damien Boyd
2017
A mutilated body on the incoming tide points to a notorious Manchester killer thought long gone. Sent north while murders continue in Somerset, Nick Dixon must work two fronts before the body count climbs.
Dead Lock
by Damien Boyd
2018
Ten-year-old Alesha Daniels vanishes, then a second girl is taken and local suspects start turning up dead. Racing back from holiday, Nick Dixon faces a desperate hunt where the abductions may be far more personal than random.
Beyond the Point
by Damien Boyd
2019
A young woman's body at a nuclear power station site appears tied to an escaped killer roaming west Somerset. Nick Dixon follows the evidence into a family's long search for truth, where money and influence distort everything.
Down Among the Dead
by Damien Boyd
2020
Human remains uncovered at an archaeological dig on the Sedgemoor battlefield seem to revive an old serial killer case. When new forensic evidence cracks the past open, Nick Dixon realizes the original investigation may have gone badly wrong.
Dying Inside
by Damien Boyd
2021
A string of sheep killings suggests someone is practicing with a crossbow, then a man is found pinned to a tree. As other units take over, newly promoted DCI Nick Dixon fights internal politics to stop a killer escalating.
Carnival Blues
by Damien Boyd
2022
Nick Dixon watches a carnival club president burn to death during Bridgwater's squibbing finale, and quickly knows it was no accident. With more public killings looming, he has to catch the killer while Professional Standards circle.
Death Message
by Damien Boyd
2023
Human remains pulled from a Somerset river turn a missing-person inquiry into a knot of murder, surveillance, and police suspicion. When graffiti begins to echo the killings, Nick Dixon returns to duty to find both the artist and the killer.
From The Ashes
by Damien Boyd
2024
An elderly woman found dead at home looks like a routine case until Nick Dixon spots signs of murder. As similar deaths surface across three counties, he begins to fear someone is deliberately targeting vulnerable older victims.
Blue Blood
by Damien Boyd
2025
On Nick Dixon's wedding day, a police officer's body is pulled from Bridgwater Bay, shot with a 3D-printed gun. Leading two linked investigations, Dixon has to untangle corruption, betrayal, and a killer targeting both cops and criminals.
Deceived By The Light
by Damien Boyd
2025
In 1985, injured and pushed out of Avon and Somerset Police, Mungo 'Bob' Willis refuses to accept that the wrong man has been blamed. His unofficial hunt for a roadside serial killer becomes one last shot at justice.
Blast from the Past
by Damien Boyd
2026
Assigned to a new cold case unit in 1986, Bob Willis reopens the 1962 abduction and murder of nine-year-old Paul Bromfield. When another child disappears, the old case turns into a live and deeply dangerous hunt.
Seeing Red
by Damien Boyd
2026
A body in a freshly dug churchyard grave seems to match crimes blamed on a Devon serial killer, and the DNA points the same way. Nick Dixon is not convinced, and digging deeper may expose the real reason the victim had to die.
Where should I start?
If you want the full Nick Dixon arc: As the Crow Flies → Head in the Sand → Kickback
If you want broader, high-pressure cases: Dead Lock → Beyond the Point → Carnival Blues
If you want the newer Nick Dixon run: Death Message → From The Ashes → Blue Blood
If you want a 1980s detective series: Deceived By The Light → Blast from the Past
Author bio
Damien Boyd grew up in Burnham-on-Sea in Somerset, where his family had long roots after moving there from Bristol during the Second World War. He went to St Dunstan's School and spent the first three decades of his life in and around the town.
Before he wrote crime novels, he worked in law.
Boyd trained as a solicitor and later spent time both in private practice and in the Crown Prosecution Service. That background gave him a close-up view of how criminal cases are built, how evidence gets tested, and how much ordinary human mess sits behind official paperwork. You can feel that practical knowledge in his fiction, but it never turns into a lecture.
He began publishing novels in 2013, and As the Crow Flies introduced Detective Inspector Nick Dixon to readers. The book planted Boyd's flag early: a police procedural with real places, clear stakes, and a detective who feels like a working officer rather than a superhero. Head in the Sand and Kickback followed quickly, and the series kept its momentum.
Somerset stayed at the center of it all.
Boyd uses the county the way some writers use a big city. Burnham-on-Sea, Bridgwater, Cheddar Gorge, the Levels, canals, schools, carnival routes, and coastal roads all matter, not just as scenery but as part of the story. Readers who like a strong sense of place tend to respond to that straight away, especially in books like Dead Lock, Carnival Blues, and From The Ashes.
His books are often called fast-paced, but what really makes them work is the balance. The police work feels grounded. The legal details make sense. Again and again, the stories turn on hidden histories, official blind spots, and the gap between what a case looks like on paper and what really happened. And Boyd gives his detectives room to be stubborn, funny, tired, lonely, or wrong, which keeps the stories human.
Nick Dixon remains the heart of Boyd's work, and the long-running series follows him from local investigations to bigger, more politically awkward cases. But Boyd has not stood still. In 2025 he launched a second series with Deceived By The Light, set in the 1980s and built around Mungo 'Bob' Willis, an older detective at the rough end of his career. Blast from the Past continued that strand and showed that Boyd could shift period and tone without losing his feel for police work.
Success came steadily. The Nick Dixon books have sold more than three million copies worldwide, As the Crow Flies and From The Ashes reached number one in the UK, and Boyd was longlisted for the Crime Writers' Association Dagger in the Library in 2026. None of that seems to have pulled him away from the local world that shaped the books in the first place.
He is still closely linked with Somerset's bookshops, libraries, festivals, and reading events, and he keeps returning to west country landscapes in his fiction. That feels fitting. Damien Boyd writes crime novels with the eye of a lawyer, the patience of a local historian, and the instincts of someone who knows that small places can hold very big secrets.
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