A great debut. Full of twists to keep you guessing til the end. I loved the "curse" and myth which made up the plot line.

DI Meg Dalton is a brilliant, quirky, flawed character who I've loved getting to know. Poor Jai has his work cut out keeping her in line!

I really enjoyed this first book in a new series and I'm looking forward to reading more.

Having read and enjoyed the subsequent books in this series I've no idea how I managed to miss this first, introduction to Meg and co.
A well written, complex case with likeable characters and just the right amount of humour.

The Devil's Dice by Roz Watkins, March 2018, 368 pages, HQ, ISBN: 0008214611

THE DEVIL'S DICE introduces DI Meg Dalton who has moved back to Derbyshire from Manchester after some personal issues.

Meg is called out to the discovery of a body in a small, reputedly haunted cave. The body is that of a local, male, patent lawyer and it looks like poison is the killer. Investigations into the deceased reveal that his personality had changed over the last few months and so suicide can't be ruled out.

Meg and her sergeant, Jai, proceed to investigate further, interviewing relatives and work colleagues. Meg has trauma in her past and the nature of this is slowly revealed over the book. Her mum is a carer for Meg's bed-ridden gran and this is an added pressure when Meg is busy on a murder case.

THE DEVIL'S DICE, a debut, is an absorbing book full of many layers - both the mystery side of it, bringing in local legends and the landscape, and Meg's personal life both as a child and current. It builds to not one but two dramatic set pieces

I very much enjoyed this book. I really liked Meg, she is humorous and likeable, with a diet of choccy biscuits and a cat called Hamlet. Her sidekick seems quite fond of her too... The plot is unusual and not one that could be easily guessed. It's a real page-turner with Meg getting into regular, serious scrapes though she is not one of those energiser bunny types and it takes its toll. And of course there is a well evoked Derbyshire setting which includes real places such as Matlock, alongside a fictional town.

The sequel, DEAD MAN'S DAUGHTER, is out next April and I'm really looking forward to it.

DI Meg Dalton has moved from Manchester to join the Derbyshire Peaks team of detectives and be near her mother and grandmother. One of her first callouts is to the scene of the discovery of a body in a cave at the start of the The Labyrinth, a system of caves and tunnels associated with a curse. Dalton and her team find a man poisoned by cyanide but are unsure whether this is suicide or murder. Given that the victim's family is supposedly cursed and given that the man was found near a carving of the Grim Reaper bearing his initials then it seemed that the tales of suicide and madness were coming to life but surely the answer is something more prosaic?

Watkins is a new name on the scene and this is an above average police procedural. I can't say I particularly liked the supernatural tone to the plot but I really liked the way this played out in terms of questioning morals and ethics - genetic illness and assisted suicide. I particularly thought that Watkins handled the back story element well, this is something that debut novelists often get so wrong, trying to cram a load of backstory into a narrative that is complex enough. Whilst the story of Dalton's family is hinted at through the book it is only really revealed fully towards the end and that is as an integral part of the plot. It ties up a few loose ends and neatly segues past and present.

Really enjoyed this book, its nice to find new authowho write in an area you are familiar with. The book had some interesting themes that ran along side the main thrustof the book.
All in all an excellent first novelin this series from this author.
Looking forward to many more in the series

A very good book with an interesting plot and great characters. It was well written and very enjoyable.
Many thanks to Netgalley and HQ

The Devil's Dice by Roz Watkins is a fabulous contemporary detective novel set in the Derbyshire Dales. It is the first in the D.I. Meg Dalton series and I cannot wait for the rest.

The Devil's Dice grips from the start as the reader can't help but get caught up in the action. This story has a bit of an original, eclectic premise. Ancient curses bump into modern crimes and characters with haunting pasts to hide.

Roz Watkins weaves a fabulous plotline that keeps the reader entertained and guessing throughout. Her characters were well thought out and realistic with their faults and failings. I really like Meg Dalton and her sidekick Jai.

The Devil's Dice is a marvellous debut novel. I hope Roz Watkins has many more stories inside her. The Devil's Dice would translate wonderfully into an ITV police drama that I would love to see - any producers out there please take note. A fabulous compelling read.

I was amused by the juxtaposition of a crime committed in a cave in the middle of the Peak District in a solitary environment, and the weapon of choice being death by cake. Oh the sweet irony. If you’re going to die then cake is the way to go.

Watkins tackles a controversial issue in The Devil’s Dice, and when I say controversial it’s because it is generating a lot of discussion, even though it should probably go without saying. In the UK there is a campaign called Dignity in Dying, and they and their supporters, have been advocating for a change in the law.

People and/or patients who are terminally ill or suffering from an incurable degenerative disease should be allowed to choose to end their pain and suffering with the help of medical institutions and doctors. Euthanasia, assisted suicide or physician assisted suicide. Instead they are forced to go overseas to countries where it has been made legal, and die alone in strange surroundings without the comfort of home or family members.

On top of the costs of a foreign assisted suicide any person travelling with the patient has to adhere to certain rules and regulations, so they are not charged with assisted manslaughter when they return to their home country. It is tragic, especially when you take into consideration how many countries have already worked assisted dying into their legal system.

DI Meg Dalton is forced to consider this very question in her own family. Her mother is caring for her grandmother, and both of them struggle with the care and the fact her grandmother would rather die than be kept in a state of constant misery and pain.

Watkins explores both sides of this contentious issue, which includes the religious argument of it being against God’s will. Suicide is a sin. It weakens society’s view on the sanctity of life, aids the slippery slope towards involuntary euthanasia and getting rid of undesirables or the fact it might not be in the patient’s best interests. Valid points of view, but none of them take the lucid arguments of people into consideration, who are quite capable of making decisions for themselves.

Watkins presents a main character who is vulnerable, actually pretty darn accident prone and always in the middle of some kind of violent altercation. She is driven by anxiety and fears, and has to deal with sexism and harassment at work on a daily basis. Overall more of an anti-heroine, which makes her more meaty.

It will be interesting to see where the author takes Meg, given a little more direction. Eventually those anxieties and her past will have to be dealt with. The lone wolf with flaws combined with unusual scenarios and deaths, what’s not to like?

If there’s one thing that this Ginger Book Geek likes, it’s discovering a new writer, or at least a writer new to me. I read the synopsis of ‘The Devil’s Dice’ and it appealed to me in a few different ways . My first thought on finishing the book was ‘Wow, just wow’ as I absolutely LOVED it but more about that in a bit.
I absolutely love the character of DI Meg Dalton. The book finds her with a recent promotion and she is just getting used to her new rank. It’s obvious that something has happened in her recent past that still affects her to this day. At first you don’t know just what it is but the author drops little hints throughout the book. Despite the scars from her past, Meg tries not to let them affect her present more than they have to. Meg is a strong, feisty, ambitious, sensitive lady. She loves her police career and she has worked darn hard to get where she is today. Meg is sympathetic to the victims of crime and does what she can to achieve justice for the victims of crime and their families. Meg is also blinking hard working and quite often does more than her fair share of the workload. She feels that she has got to prove herself if that makes sense and show that her promotion was justified. She has the respect of most of her colleagues although there was one of her co-workers that I could have quite cheerfully slapped around the chops with a wet flip flop and that is DS Craig Cooper. He is quite snide about Meg and because I liked her so much, I felt defensive of her. Cooper is one of those stereotypical misogynistic, racist, homophobic police officer dinosaurs from the last century and quite frankly that’s where he belongs. Cooper also sees to have a chip (or maybe a whole bag of chips) on his shoulder about the fact that he thinks he should have been promoted instead of Meg, he can’t accept that not only has a woman (shock horror) got the rank of Inspector before him, he actually has to work for her to boot. Cooper intimidates Meg somewhat although she tries her hardest not to react.
As I mentioned at the beginning of my review I absolutely loved reading ‘The Devil’s Dice’. The story started in such a memorable way that it had grabbed my attention from the first page onwards and ensures that the story stays in my mind for a heck of a long time to come. The nature of the crime is unusual and not exactly something you come across every day. Once I started reading, I found that I became addicted to the story and I had to get my next fix of just one page, just one more chapter and well you get the picture. The page numbers and the time just flew past at speed and before I knew it I was halfway through the book, but because I was so ‘into’ the story I hadn’t realised how I far I had got. The book is so well written that I had a hard time of believing that ‘The Devil’s Dice’ is a debut novel, as the writing is so polished and so confident. I loved the setting of Derbyshire as I have family down there and I loved recognising place names and landmarks. I loved the strong female character of DI Meg Dalton. Reading ‘The Devil’s Dice’ was a lot like being on a very unpredictable rollercoaster with lots of twists, turns, moments where you feel your heart rate increase and you hold your breath because you genuinely fear what is going to happen next.
In short I absolutely, totally and utterly 100 % loved reading ‘The Devil’s Dice’ and I would wholeheartedly recommend it to other readers. It’s certainly a brilliant book, which is sure to be a hit. I can’t wait to read what comes next from this hugely talented if slightly twisted author. Here’s hoping that there isn’t too long a wait in store. Roz Watkins has shot up onto my list of most favourite and must read authors and ‘The Devil’s Dice’ has to be one of my favourite books of 2018. The score on the Ginger Book Geek board is a well deserved 5* out of 5*.

I couldn’t put this down, from the first page I was hooked. An excellent thriller.

This novel is creepy, dark and atmospheric and I really loved it. It is the first novel featuring Meg Dalton, the new DI in the Derbyshire Police. She has a troubled past that slowly unravels through the novel. She has also unresolved issues and she is broken by the guilt that she feels over her sister.

The novel starts with a great opening. A man slowly dying in a cave. The man’s name is Peter Hamilton and he is a patent lawyer. The cave his body was found in is called by the locals The Devil’s Dice and the legend say that people go there to kill themselves. What at first looked like a suicide, it quickly turns into murder as Meg finds out that Peter Hamilton had many secrets. And even all the people around him seem to be hiding something, from his wife to his siblings, from his colleagues to their wives.

While Meg investigates she has other things to deal with: someone seems to be after her and there is a male colleague who constantly throws cutting remarks at her because she is a woman. On the personal side, she is worried about her mother who lately seems forgetful and she is clearly hiding something.

I liked the character of Meg, she is flawed, troubled and complicated, but she is a good detective and good daughter. The other characters are (mostly) likable and engaging, but what I liked most was Meg’s relationship with her colleague Jai and their funny and witty exchanges.

The author adds a mystical touch to the plot with the elements of the cursed house, the Greek mythology, the legend of the Devil’s Dice, and the witchcraft. The setting of Derbyshire and Peak District is dark and atmospheric and it suits perfectly to the story.

THE DEVIL’S DICE is the first novel in a series and I really look forward to reading more about these characters and from this author.

Thank you HQ for providing me with an early copy of the book.

Usually on my blog, I do my own “blurb” for the book. You never know, someone might spot what I’m doing, prefer my blurbs, and get me a presitigious blurb-writing job. But on very rare occasions I reproduce the official blurb. And obviously this is one of those occasions. Because it doesn’t really represent the book.

The first two paragraphs are true enough, but it implies that this is a different sort of book than it actually is. The implication is that the “impossible initials” is an important part of the plot – and it really isn’t. The idea of the curse is a running theme throughout the book – in fact the nature of the curse is one of the more impressive aspects of the plot – but don’t head for this one based on the implied impossible crime.

The third paragraph though… there really isn’t any game playing here – it’s not that sort of story. The murderer has a plan and apart from one particular bit – more on that later – there’s not game playing. What we have is a decent police procedural with a protagonist who develops over the course of the book with some interesting things to say about some important issues.

It’s not perfect – the first half of the book dragged a bit for me, the second half being much more gripping, and I felt the suspects were a fairly indistinguishable bunch for the most part – but once it settles down, it’s a good read. As Meg’s background becomes clearer – the revelation of the secrets from her past are drip-fed through the story – she becomes a more relatable character, and her team develops nicely through the story. The finale (well, finales, sort of) is exciting, although an extremely odd use of the Monty Hall Problem seemed rather out of place – but at least it was given the correct solution – hurrah for Mathematics!

All in all, an interesting read, not going in the directions that the reader might expect but as a debut police procedural novel, this is definitely Well Worth A Look.

The Devil’s Dice is released the Thursday, March 8th from HQ, a division of Harper Collins UK.

I heard about The Devil’s Dice last year when I was at the Crime Writing Festival in Harrogate so I stored the title away in my brain to watch out for. Being set around an area I know will always pique my interest in a book and The Devil’s Dice is set in and around my childhood locale of the Peak District which I loved.

I was totally drawn into the story from the beginning; how could you not be when the first body is death by cake! It was a kind of locked room mystery. And then there is the legend of the labyrinth. It gave the whole story a sinister feel. This story centres around secrets – within a community, within a business, within a family. Everywhere there are secrets.

Roz Watkins kept me guessing throughout this thoroughly addictive read. It’s a brilliantly crafted debut which saw me clicking through the kindle pages at pace. I really hope to see more from Meg Dalton and the team and I definitely can’t wait to see what the TV series looks like!!!

The Devil's Dice is a police procedural with a difference - a warm and engaging main character in DI Meg Dalton.

A man's body is found in a cave of The Devil's Dice, a known suicide spot in the Peak District. Initially his death is thought to be suicide but when further deaths occur amid local gossip of a curse it appears a murderer is on the loose and Meg has to catch him before he strikes again.

The story twists back and forth and the book is a real page turner with an unexpected denouement. I don't normally read or enjoy police procedurals but Meg is a great character. I look forward to reading more of her adventures solving crimes in the beautiful Derbyshire Dales.

Many thanks to Netgalley, HQ and Roz Watkins for the opportunity to read and review The Devil's Dice.

I really enjoyed reading this book and thought it was a great addition to the crime genre. I found the central character interesting and refreshing and am looking forward to seeing how she develops in future books. The storyline was also gripping and held my attention throughout. I was glad to see that it wasn't the usual run of the mill police procedural and I feel this definitely stands out in what is quite a congested market. Am eagerly awaiting the next book!

What a fantastic start to a new series.
I really enjoyed this book and can’t wait for the next one.
DI Meg Dalton moves up to Derbyshire to take on a new job and be nearer to her Mum and Gran.
It soon becomes clear that something happened in Meg’s past that is affecting her now but it’s not until later in the book that we find out what happened.
A body is found in a cave along with the person’s initials scraped into the wall and a grim reaper figure.
When Meg starts to investigate it seems there’s a local myth about a curse on the house where the victim lives. Soon another life is lost and they have to work out if the deaths were suicides or murders.
This is a gripping story that really had me hooked from the first few chapters. The final chapters were breathtaking and I really didn’t want it to end.
If you’re looking for a new crime series to get your teeth into then I’d highly recommend this book.
Thanks to HQ and NetGalley for giving me the opportunity to read this book.

An intelligent thriller with a heart.

A taut and intelligent thriller this is a debut to be reckoned with.
Meg Dalton’s voice is inimitable, her character is unlike any female detective I have met previously - memorable, articulate and utterly relatable.
The Peak District was so distinctively brought to life that I felt rather than it jumping out at me it in fact pulled me in, each page bringing me another step closer so that like Meg I could see the ‘Stone cottages so tiny they looked like Hobbit houses’ (Roz Watkins -The Devils Dice).
The folklore and the element of witchcraft that are woven throughout the story added an eerie element that reminded me of Sharon Bolton at her best.

Staggeringly well written the hard-hitting subjects that this book tackles are dealt with sensitively and with an understanding that resonated deeply with me.

Thank you so much to the Publisher and to NetGalley for the advance copy in exchange for an honest review. Meg’s words struck a chord with me and I feel like I’ve made a friend for life.

A page-turning debut featuring a fabulous lead character. Full of wry wit and weird legends, this mystery thriller is fresh, fun & full of emotion.

Set in the dramatic and atmospheric Derbyshire countryside this book is not only wonderfully descriptive but it is based around some of my favourite areas in this county and so I could absolutely picture the woods, the caves, the quarries, which was fantastic. There has long been Derbyshire myths, legends, ghost stories and haunting crimes that make this the ideal place to set a book like this and Roz Watkins actually details a number of local sites you can actually visit such as the Nine Ladies Stone Circle on Stanton Moor.

Following on from this perfect back drop, a terrible discovery is made within a cave and initial suspicions are thrown in to doubt with a more unnerving discovery and it transpires there's much more than meets the eye (well it wouldn't be a very good thriller otherwise!)

DI Meg Dalton is a complex character, wracked with guilt and unresolved issues she is starting a new job back in her home county trying to prove to her team, and herself that she is up to the job. Although "damaged detective" is a bit of a crime thriller trope (though honestly with the magnitude and demands of the job I'm not convinced anyone can do it in real life without being affected) it is not over a man, thank god! I do love reading crime/murder/detective series' by female authors with a female protagonist, because you get that authenticity that's relatable and beautifully complex.

This plot has many red herrings, with subtle twists and a spooky local curse mystery that seems unfathomably at the heart of a tragedy befalling a family in the local area. It is fast-paced, gripping and I couldn't put it down once I was 50% in so devoured it in one afternoon. I found the individual characters written; Meg's family, her colleagues, the suspects, were all fascinating additions to the plot and I definitely look forward to reading more in the series of this talented debut.

The Devils Dice Roz Watkins


I love crime thrillers with a difference. This book blends a hint of Dan Brown, with a rich mix of Angela Marsons, and is set in the Derbyshire Countryside.

Where does the hint of Dan Brown come in? From the very start. A man is found dead in an ancient cave house. As the forensic teams start to examine the scene the lead detective, DI Meg Dalton finds an old carving of the Grim Reaper with the legend "Coming for PHH" The dead man is PHH, the carving is over 100 years old, he died today.

The cave is tied by local legend to the story of people being found hanged in the cave and tunnel system close by. They are called the Labyrinth and are close to the rock formation, The Devils Dice.

Close to the Devils Dice is an old cottage on the edge of a quarry face. For years people have thought of the cottage as being cursed. People who live there are prone to committing suicide, or worse. Guess where PHH lived.

The rich mix of Angela Marsons? Rox Watkins has created a character in DI Meg Dalton that is as fascinating as Angela Marsons' DI Kim Stone.

Dalton is a single woman dealing with major family issues, which she is trying to keep to herself and not let them disrupt her work. She has a team member DS Jai Sanghera who is determined to help her, but will she let him.

Then there is the crime. Although the crime is wrapped up in ancient folk law it is very much a modern crime, and its investigated in a very realistic manner which makes the story not only believable, but also very enjoyable to read.

As the investigation continues into the death of PHH more deaths occur, are they linked, are they even suspicious, or is all the talk of the curse beginning to affect even the most cynical of Police Officers.

The story has many threads and it's not until the last couple of chapters that they all come together to create a brilliant end to the book.

It's not often that I read a crime novel these days which is so full of originality. After all there are only so many ways a crime can be committed, and there are only so many reasons why. I'm sure somebody will point out there have been similar stories, but I haven't read them, and certainly not in the same book.

A great read and I can't wait for the next book from Rox Watkins

Pages: 384
Publisher: HQ
Publishing Date UK: 8th March 2018