This is a disturbing thriller that will have you turning the pages as quickly as you can to find out the answers. I was hooked from the first page until the last!

I had not come across Trevor Negus and his DCI Danny Swift novels, and it was only a browse through Netgalley that brought it to my attention, and I am glad I found it - but sorry to come late to the series, which began with Evil in MInd, and was followed by Dead and Gone. The three books all came out in May this year from Inkubator Books, but A Cold Grave was first published in 2018 with the title A Different Kind of Evil, from Bathwood Manor Publishing, which seems to be no more. I am glad that Inkubator have picked up the torch and are running with it.

I have to say that the police procedural genre is my absolute Alpha and Omega in crime fiction, and chancing upon a new (to me) series is a 'punch the air' moment. The acid test of course, is deciding if the book is any good. I think police procedurals are harder to get wrong than most genres, but it does happen. I am happy to say that Trevor Negus does most things right in this novel, and so he hasn't dropped the Ming vase to shatter into a thousand pieces. The book is set in 1986, so in one sense it is Historical Crime Fiction, but only the absence of mobile phones stands out as a major difference between then and now. One of the elements that make this novel work so well is the sense - and continuity - of place. We certainly aren't in the most romantic or obviously atmospheric part of Britain, but Negus knows Nottinghamshire like the back of his proverbial, and so he should; his bio reveals:

"In 1975 Trevor joined the Nottinghamshire Constabulary as a Police Cadet, becoming a regular officer in 1978. As a uniform constable he learned his craft in the pressure cooker environment of inner city Nottingham which at that time had one of the highest violent crime rates in the United Kingdom.

During a varied thirty year police career Trevor spent six years as an authorised firearms officer and sniper, before transferring onto the CID. He spent the last twelve years of his career as a detective, becoming a specialist interviewer involved in the planning and implementation of interviews with murder suspects."

One of the most notorious places in Nottinghamshire is Rampton Secure Hospital, and it is here that the story begins. Two prisoners escape, after inflicting serious violence on several staff. One is quickly tracked down, but the other, Jimmy Wade, gets clean away, almost certainly helped by a member of the public with a car. Wade is a seriously deranged psychopath, and every day he remains at large is a day of anxiety for Detective Inspector Danny Swift and his team.

Swift has something else on his plate, though. That ever-reliable participant in murder enquiries (real and fictional)  - a dog walker - has discovered the decomposing body of a boy. The boy is soon identified as Evan Jenkins, who has been removed from the 'care' of his mother, a drug addicted prostitute, and placed in a care home called Tall Trees.wift has a bad feeling about the couple who run the home - Carol and Bill Short - and he connects them both to a drug ring and - even worse - a ring of paedophiles  whose members include several civic dignitaries and influential businessmen. Meanwhile, Wade's whereabouts remains a mystery.

Unlike Danny Swift, we know that Wade is living in a remote cottage on a country estate, aided and abetted by his girlfriend Melissa Braithwaite, who is drawn to him by a poisonous mixture of fear of his violence and the worst kind of sexual attraction. Wade has a revenge mission he hatched while under lock and key - the abduction of two prison officers who had given him a particularly hard time in Rampton.Danny Swift's hunt for Wade and the paedophile ring responsible for Evan Jenkins's death is played out against an impressively authentic geographical background - the Nottinghamshire towns of Retford, Newark and Mansfield. A police procedural this may be, but Dixon of Dock Green it certainly is not. It is dark, and sometimes frighteningly violent, but always compellingly readable. A Cold Grave is out now.

A Cold Grave by Trevor Negus focuses on Chief Inspector Danny Flint and his team. Danny, who has just returned from his honeymoon, hits the ground running and returns to looking for the still at large, escaped serial killer, Jimmy Wade. His team is also brought into the search for a local boy, who's gone missing from the local children's home. Soon, he's not the only one who's gone missing but Danny and his team are committed to each of the searches. Great teamwork and knowing who to watch out for were just a couple of the things that I enjoyed about this book. While fast paced, it wasn't one of those books that I felt like I had to rush through. I appreciate that in a novel. If you enjoy whodunits and dramas with a bit of thriller, look no further.

A Cold Grave is the third instalment in the DCI Danny Flint series, part of the Nottinghamshire Major Crime Investigation Unit. Nottinghamshire, June 1986. Danny has just returned from his honeymoon in Madeira and is immediately called to a gruesome scene. The body of an 11-year-old boy, identified as Evan Jenkins who was recently reported missing from Tall Trees Children’s home, is discovered at a secluded beauty spot in Haywood Oaks Lane, Blidworth, Nottinghamshire by dog walker Anne Parr. The post mortem reveals that the child had been sexually assaulted and suffocated. Chief Inspector Danny Flint and the MCIU begin an enquiry into the boy's death. As their investigation takes them into a murky world of child exploitation at Children's Homes across the county, they are also tasked with investigating the escape of psychopath Jimmy Wade from Rampton Hospital. Wade was assisted in his escape by an obsessed and troubled young woman and has remained in hiding at the woman's remote woodland cottage.

He is fixated on achieving revenge against the people who abused him at Rampton and the detectives who tracked him down and convicted him. The two investigations set Danny Flint and his team their toughest test yet and stretch their resources and nerves to the limits. As the detectives close in on their quarry the story hurtles towards a thrilling and breathtaking climax. This is a compelling and gritty police procedural that is full of intricate detail but is a little too long at over 500 pages. Although it is lengthy, I enjoyed the thrill ride but it is certainly not for the faint of heart as its graphic, violent and rather gruesome. Through determined police work and dogged investigation, the team chip away at both cases gradually building up their evidence. Alternating between the children’s home investigation and the hunt for dangerous fugitive Jimmy Wade, Negus caps it all off with a wicked, unexpected twist and a satisfying resolution. Overall, a solid, interesting and well-constructed read.

I have to say I'm not a fan of huge long books. I always think less is more and there is no reason to be over 500 pages, at that point I must say just split it up into another book, especially as this is already a series (but can be a standalone. I thought some of the characters were very flat as well, and overall just thought this story could've been made much shorter.

I would like to thank Netgalley and Inkubator Books for an advance copy of A Cold Grave, the third novel to feature DCI Danny Flint of the Nottinghamshire Major Crime Investigation Unit, set in 1986.

Danny comes back from honeymoon and has to immediately investigate the murder of an 11 year old boy. It soon becomes apparent that they are looking at a case of child sex abuse. In the meantime psychopath Jimmy Wade has escaped from prison and is hellbent on revenge.

I enjoyed A Cold Grave to a certain extent, as it carefully builds its plot, but it is a violent novel with a lot of description. I like to think I have a strong stomach, but I found this novel a bit too much in its cruelty and inhumanity.

The narrative alternates between Danny’s investigation and Jimmy Wade’s quest for revenge. I have no doubt that this latter portrays his mindset accurately but I would have preferred a bit more inference and less detail. It made me loath to pick up the novel at times, worried about what was coming next. I ended up skim reading those parts and for this reason I have rated it 3.5* rather than 4*.

Apart from the gruesomeness of the murder the investigation is a good, interesting police procedural. I like the way the detectives start with a vague idea about the perpetrator and gradually solidify this idea through smart thinking and determined effort. It culminates in the final quarter of the novel where everything is resolved. I must admit that this is my favourite part of the novel as the sadism is dialled back to almost zero, there are some tense moments and a neat twist to finish it off.

A Cold Grave was a mixture of good and a high yuk factor for me. 3.5*.

My thanks to NetGalley and publisher Inkubator Books for the electronic copy.

This is Book#3 in the DCI Danny Flint series but can be read as a standalone. I have not read the previous books.

March 1986 - Jimmy Wade, a psychopathic killer, accompanied by Clive Winstanley, a paedophile, escape from Rampton secure hospital in Nottinghamshire, brutally beating four or the staff there. Clive is recaptured but Jimmy's trail goes cold. DCI Danny Flint had already postponed his honeymoon but had to leave the case in the hands of his DI. On returning, no progress had been made.

June 1986 - eleven year old Evan Jenkins is reported missing from Tall Trees Children's home. His body is found by a dog walker some days later and Danny takes on that case - allocating the ongoing enquiries into Wade to two female detectives. He just knows Wade will kill again.

Meanwhile Wade is hiding in plain sight, plotting his revenge on certain people at the hospital.

There is a good deal of torture/ violence and malevolence in this story and when it's realised that Evan was sexually abused and drugged, Danny is considering they have a paedophile ring on their hands.

However - this is an extremely detailed police procedural - it read really dryly, almost like a report of the investigation. I found the police characters one-dimensional - they didn't have any "personalities" - Danny just doled out orders, allocated resources and used his two DIs to organised their staff; no-one ever argued or dissented - come to that no-on (except on the odd occasion the 2 female detectives) ever had a laugh - this is really weird in a busy major investigation team. Nevertheless the characters of the perpetrators were well-drawn and menacing within the two main story-lines.

And, there are lots of inconsistencies within the story-line (and in this book's description also) which I found rather irritating, having to back-track to make sure I was reading this properly.

So, I'll have to say sorry to fans of this author; I didn't like the writing style or the accuracy of the storyline.