Dig Two Graves by Heather Peck

My thanks to Anne Cater and Random Things Blog Tours for inviting me to be review this book. All views are my own.

About the Book

This is the fifth installment of the DCI Greg Geldard Norfolk Mystery Series from award-winning author Heather Peck. In this installment Greg stumbles upon the gruesome murder of a police informant and realizes his colleague has gone missing, presumed kidnapped.

As he seeks Sarah in a desperate race against time, he uncovers a sinister County Lines operation, entangled with money laundering and a labyrinthine network of organised crime. The pursuit is intensifying when the man at the centre of the web directs his malevolence towards Greg, targeting not only his home and his cat, but also his beloved partner, Chris.

My Review

As a new reader to the series, it was, at first difficult to get into the book. The book begins immediately after the close of book 4, and the reader is thrust straight into the crime scene with characters unheard of, unless you’ve read the previous book, with no preamble to help out a newcomer.

Nevertheless, refusing to be undeterred, I continued reading! The author had provided a handy character list at the front of the book, and I did find myself having to refer back to this quite frequently. There was also a glossary for police terms so if you are new to the crime genre, that is a handy feature.

The opening chapter describes quite a gruesome murder – fine by me! – and the reader is very quickly swept along with the action. Short chapters are always a win with me, particularly in this genre as I find it really helps to increase and maintain the fast pace required with a crime thriller where time is of the essence.

However, for me, the book tried to do too much and I felt at times like I was being robbed of detail and the build-up of suspense. So many things happened, and really quickly! I would have liked to have seen more made of Sarah’s incarceration – she was rescued very swiftly and, although I don’t agree with violence for the sake of it, I felt more could have been done to increase the tension, making this a more prominent part of the story. There were lots of incidents that seemed to be resolved very quickly and easily which seemed juxtaposed against the initial grisly crime.

Nevertheless, this will not deter me from reading books by this author again. I would like to go back and start at the beginning, as coming to the series at book 5 felt like I had missed out on essential character building that happens naturally in such series. Therefore, I am giving this book 3 stars, but this is due to the fact that I’ve missed out on the lead up to this point.

About the Author

Award-winning author Heather Peck has had a varied life.

As featured in the ‘Norfolk’ magazine and the Eastern Daily Press, “Norfolk farm disaster expert turns to crime writing” she has been both farmer and agricultural policy adviser. She bred sheep and alpacas, reared calves, broke ploughs, represented the UK in international negotiations, specialised in emergency response from Chernobyl to bird flu, managed controls over pesticides and GM crops, saw legislation through Parliament and got paid to eat Kit Kats while on secondment to Rowntree. She has also chaired an NHS Trust, worked on animal welfare, sailed a boat on the Broads, volunteered in Citizens Advice and the Witness Service and vaccinated humans against Covid.

Two golden threads have run through everything; her fascination with words and her Gran’s wise advice: ‘You can do anything if you try hard enough’.