Born in a Burial Gown

DI Avison Fluke, Book 1

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Born in a Burial Gown

By: M. W. Craven

Narrated by: John Banks

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About this listen

The first gritty thriller in the Avison Fluke series by M. W. Craven, the acclaimed author of The Puppet Show.

Detective Inspector Avison Fluke is a man on the edge. He has committed a crime to get back to work, concealed a debilitating illness and is about to be made homeless.

Just as he thinks things can't get any worse, the body of a young woman is found buried on a Cumbrian building site.

Shot once in the back of the head, it is a cold, calculated execution. When the postmortem reveals she has gone to significant expense in disguising her appearance, Fluke knows this is no ordinary murder.

With the help of a psychotic ex-Para, a gangland leader and a woman more interested in maggots than people, Fluke must find out who she was and why she was murdered before he can even think about finding her killer.

Crime Thrillers

Modern Detectives

Mystery

Police Procedural

Suspense

Thriller & Suspense

Fiction

Thriller

Exciting

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Critic reviews

"Deeply layered, fiendishly clever and absorbing." (Matt Hilton, author of the Joe Hunter series)

Most relevant

A new author for me and this is a really decent start to a new series! I have always loved the Lake District and it's clear that Craven knows the area well as familiar names and places dominate this book. Obviously the key to any detective series is the lead and this one is a complete Fluke! In an interesting twist on the dysfunctional detective Avison Fluke has many of the typical characteristics of brilliant deduction, difficulties with authority figures, a tad on the anti-social side at times but his dysfunction is mainly his illness which never quite lets him out of his grip. It makes for an interesting dynamic and the chemistry between him and the other characters works well.

The story itself has lots of clever elements to it, the mystery of the 'crime' that Fluke has committed, the insect behavior elements but mostly the central mystery of the young woman which I thought was quite clever and original. If I had any kind of problem with the writing style though it was how Fluke went from being sharp as a razor on deductions one minute to being slower than a donkey in concrete overshoes the next. There was one not so subtle set of interactions with two hospital doctors where I was sighing and almost yelling at my headphones about how slow he was at taking the hint. In fairness having said that, with the clever central mystery a couple of times I was surprised at how slow he was being only to realise that I was actually completely wrong. That's a good detective story.

John Banks helps capture the local feel of the story with his excellent narration and really brings some of these characters to life with considerable warmth and personality. He also ramps up the tension nicely and is particularly strong at portraying the thoughtful side of Fluke.

So, this is a really good start, Avison Fluke and his fellow denizens of Cumbria are well worth spending time with. This is a fairly detailed police procedural with some nice touches like the bugs, medical knowledge and some very good interview scenes. I'll no doubt be getting the second book sometime soon because the central mystery was very skillfully unfolded in this one.

Craven's Good Start is a Fluke!