Nick Chester Books in Order

The Nick Chester series drops a Sunderland born former undercover cop into the quiet looking valleys and bays of New Zealand's South Island. Nick has burned bridges in England and is hiding from Geordie gangsters under a new name, working as a sergeant for the police in the Marlborough Sounds. On paper he has the life many people dream about, with a small town posting, a house in the hills and time with his wife Vanessa and their son Paulie. Underneath, he is always watching the road for cars that do not belong.

In Marlborough Man two locals go missing and their bodies are soon found, echoing the old stories of the Pied Piper. The case forces Nick to juggle routine rural jobs with the slow, grinding work of tracking a predator who knows the local terrain as well as he does. The novel leans hard into the contrast between the stunning scenery of the Sounds and the ugly motives hiding there, showing vineyards, logging tracks and flooded rivers as both playground and trap. As the investigation tightens, Nick's own past edges closer to the surface, reminding him that safety in a small community can be an illusion.

Carter makes good use of the people around Nick too. Colleagues like constable Latifa and the bosses back in Blenheim bring humour and friction, while locals move between being neighbours, witnesses and suspects. Domestic scenes with Vanessa and Paulie sit alongside long shifts on the road or on the water, giving the series a lived in feel. It is as much about holding a family together under pressure as it is about catching a killer.

Doom Creek raises the stakes further. Gold fever in the nearby Wakamarina valley stirs up bad blood between prospectors, and a group of heavily armed Americans is building a doomsday bolthole high in the hills. At the same time Nick is asked to look into a cold case and a scandal plagued religious sect, threads that slowly wind together as local and international tensions climb. Earthquakes, landslips and small town politics all play a part, and Nick finds himself up against an enemy who does not stop at the edge of his patch.

Across the Nick Chester books you can expect tight plotting, dry northern English humour and a very strong sense of New Zealand rural life, from dodgy back roads to river valleys and damp farmhouses. These stories will suit readers who enjoy crime fiction where the landscape really matters, the threat comes from both the past and the present, and the detective is doing his best to be a good husband and father while the world refuses to stay quiet.