"A grandmother publicly executed, a recluse decapitated in his home. Both perpetrators committed suicide, prepared to die rather than face prosecution. But why?

DI Daniel Sheppard faces this question in his first case since returning to the police service. The guilty no longer a threat, the coroner satisfied; on the surface these cases are sewn up. But, beneath the disarming rural quiet of Blaine, something's lurking."

A thriller not for the faint-hearted or easily shocked. Containing graphic violent language so be warned.

Totally enjoyed my first experience with this author. An excellent thriller which kept me on the edge of my seat and kept me guessing all the way through.

After losing his wife to a long term illness, Daniel is ready to go back to work. His job as a police detective is waiting for him and his first case is a local murder-suicide. This is very unusual for his sleepy Irish village, especially since it's their second murder-suicide within a year.
This was a good (not great) read. The characters were clearly described. The story was interesting, if not terribly original.
Personally, I had a difficult time with many of the Irish terms and phrases. It seemed like I was constantly looking up definitions at the start of the book. At some point I gave up and just skipped over unfamiliar words.

Thank you Netgalley.

While I mostly enjoyed the book, I did find the plot twists a little far-fetched. But the characters were mostly believable and well developed. I did find the author's name dropping of brand names somewhat irritating (product placement in novels now??). But Jackie Collins and Stuart Woods have both sold books that were worse in that respect.

While I would read other books in this series if they landed on my head, I doubt that I would deliberately seek them out.

I would like to thank Netgalley and the author for a review copy of Prepared to Die, a police procedural set in Lincolnshire featuring DI Daniel Sheppard.

The novel opens with a shocking scene. A grandmother is forced at gunpoint into the rhino enclosure at Chester zoo where she is gored to death by a rhino by a smartly dressed woman who turns the gun on herself. 3 years later in Blaine, a Lincolnshire village, Sebastian Fallon is knifed to death by Anthony Nixon who then kills himself. When another murder/suicide occurs DI Dan Sheppard returns to police work after the death of his wife to lead the investigation, seeing links no one else does.

I enjoyed Prepared to Die. It is an engrossing read with some good, unexpected twists and it held my attention throughout. The plot is well paced and delivered although the premise is slightly unbelievable at the dénouement - it just doesn't seem possible, although in serial killer novels anything is possible.

I like DI Daniel Sheppard who is a slightly unusual investigator. He is a smart, diffident man with no real vices unless you count heavy rock guitar playing and the quirk of putting the emphasis on listening and team contribution in his briefings. He is struggling with grief over the death of his wife but the investigation is just what he needs to take his mind off it.

Despite the subject matter, which is graphic in parts, I like the ordinariness of the novel, the descriptions of some of the minor characters are so apt I felt I could recognise them, the everyday minutiae of life and the village gossip.

Prepared to Die is a good read which I have no hesitation in recommending.

This was a bit of a challenging book to read, in terms of it being quite gruesome in parts, so be warned if you have a weak stomach!

DI Daniel Sheppard is on his first case back after the death of his wife, Alison, and it's a doozy. A murder-suicide with no apparent connection between the two people in question. Then another one occurs.... Daniel does his best to solve the case with a team which has some interesting members, some of whom are not exactly convinced that Daniel is the right man for the job. The cases keep on mounting up and then it gets even more complicated when Daniel lets his personal and work lives mix.

I found this book hard to characterise; it is mostly a police procedural and there are plenty of red herrings and shocks along the way to keep most crime readers happy. The characterisations were mostly well done although I could have done with a little more fleshing out of some of the characters.

This book was recommended. I kind of hope there will be a sequel some time as I felt I was only just starting to get to know the characters and would like to read more about them.

I voluntarily reviewed an Advanced Reader Copy of this book. Thank you to NetGalley.

I found this book to be very engrossing. It kept my attention and had me guessing until the end. I will most definitely read more books by this author.

I really like books from UK authors. This one didn't really hold my attention because there were so many different angles and points of view. I really hate this kind of jumping around, and seeming disorganized plot. Somehow the author gets to the end, but I'm bumfuzzled as to how. The language gets foul at times that doesn't add to the plot or give any kind of impact.

This is not an Agatha Christie type of mystery that is well thought out and all the characters are well developed. The, I think, protagonist is a bit introspective for me. But there are so many different characters whose heads we pop into and out of that it's hard to keep track.

The premise is good. The writing is also fairly good. It's the editing that needs a lot of improvement.

I received this from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

I don't much like books of kidnapping, torture and child abuse and if I had realized that these were the plot of "Prepared to Die", I wouldn't have asked for it. But I did and I read it and it's OK. The mystery's solution is well hidden and the writing is generally good. However, and this is the reason for my downgrade, is that there are some inexplicable mistakes in the book, the most glaring of which is that the UK police "caution" is referred to as "Miranda rights". Huh?

A couple of other word uses and typos grated too. What is "clean-skinned"? One does not enter a room full of people clandestinely. The beds in the jail are unlikely to be planks of teak.

And, Mr. Dudgeon, khaki and purple don't actually clash.

I received a review copy of "Prepared to Die" by Peter Dudgeon (self-published) through NetGalley.com.

Prepared to Die by Peter dudgeon.
A grandmother falls into a rhinos penn while at the zoo with her grandson.3 years later a man stabbed in his home. DCI Edwards and his team are called in to investigate. A post woman doing her rounds calls it in. But she says the body is not Sebastian fallon. What's going on and are they connected?
Fantastic read with brilliant characters. Full of twists and plots. Very cleverly written too. Just couldn't put it down. Had to find out what was going on. 5*. Netgalley and Peter dudgeon.

<b><i>Far Fetched!</i></b> I received this book free from the publisher through NetGalley in exchange for a fair and honest review. Written by Peter Dudgeon in 2017, the book’s publisher was not included in the ARC that was provided to me for review. It was, however, printed in the United Kingdom.

The novel is set in the U.K., and the protagonist is a retired police Detective Inspector (DI) named Daniel Sheppard. DI Sheppard took early retirement ten years earlier after his wife developed terminal Primary Progressive Multiple Sclerosis. She passed away after ten years of progressively worsening health. After his wife’s death, the Detective Chief Inspector of his former police unit asks him to come back to work as a homicide detective. Eventually, Sheppard decides to return. A number of suspicious (to him) murder-suicides have occurred in the village where he lives, and he believes that are connected. His boss and most of the other detectives do not. As you might expect, Sheppard and his new team of detectives eventually solve the murders, but not before more bad things happen.

I found the plot of the story to be somewhat disorganized and chaotic. We learn, for example, that Sheppard has a Les Paul electric guitar, that he knows how to play it, and that he sometimes plays and sings at a local pub on weekends. This information takes up a part of the book but contributes not a whit to the plot. I did not find the plot to be easy to believe. The ending of the story is relatively unsatisfying, The author tries to tie up loose ends, but readers will probably still wonder about the fate of some of the characters, including important characters.

The spelling errors in the book are disconcerting. For example, the author consistently spells the past tense of the very “lead” as L-E-A-D. Never mind that the Oxford English Dictionary tells us that the past and past participle tenses of “lead” is “led” — spelled L-E-D. I find this error to be particularly annoying. If it was the only spelling error in the book, I would be inclined to overlook it, but there are many more. The shoes/boots known as Doc Martens are consistently misspelled in the book as “Doc Martins” or “Dr. Martins.” Apparently, the author has confused the TV show with the footwear.

The final chapter of the book, Chapter Sixty-Three, is the book’s copyright information. This is something I have never seen before. An entire chapter dedicated to the copyright information. The editing errors might be cleaned up before final printing, but the story can’t. I did not particularly like this book, and I would not recommend it to others. It is an unlikely scenario that would be difficult to imagine really happening. Feel free to skip this one. I don’t think you’ll be sorry if you do.

A good suspenseful read. A well written book, that will keep you guessing. I was surprised not so much by whodunit, as how they did it. Definitely a page turner.

A solid whodunit with an unusual set of murders. DI Daniel Sheppard has just lost his wife and is slowly putting his life back together. He returns to the Force with an easy case, an obvious murder-suicide. But the more he looks into it, he finds that nothing is really that clear and that there may be something more to this. Daniel has an unusual investigative style. He drives some of his coworkers crazy, but others can really shine. Such is the case of Aitken, a female officer who is assigned to help him during the investigation. The story kept my interest up until the end. It is easy to root for Daniel. He is damaged because of the loss of his wife, and he tells his superior that he is not like Luther, he won't obsess over a case so much that he won't be able to sleep, but he is the only one who sees the pattern. The final confrontation with the baddie is really exciting and pulse-raising. A good, interesting mystery.

In the beginning I was irritated by style of this book, too many product names. However, the pace of the story and the way in which the characters were developed, soon drew me in.

Eventually, this habit died away, or I became oblivious to it.

Having said that, I enjoyed the pace of the story. From the start, it seemed that it might be a bit disjointed, but eventually the rather bizarre opening does have a meaning.

The characters are well created and the narrative flows well.

On the basis of this I will look out for future books by Peter Dudgeon.

My thanks to Netgalley for a copy in exchange for this review

I enjoyed this crime novel. It had a different few slants, slightly unbelievable and I am sure police officers will find it ludicrous, let us hope they do not read it.
However it was a good read and I would recommend it to others.

This story starts off with a punch and doesn't let you go! From what seems like a preposterous link of a grandmother being shot and pushed into a rhino pen, and a very odd decapitation, Sheppard is forced to use every ounce of brain power he and his new team have, in order to try to sort out clues that makes no sense initially. And he does this while is is searching his way back into the job he loves, but had left behind to care for his invalid wife. Once the team starts finding the clues, each has to hurry to find the others, as separately they all have pieces of the puzzles, and ALL are in danger. It's a thrill ride of a mystery that will have you reading LONG into the night! Don't pick this one up unless you can keep reading it til the end!

AND Supreme BONUS- it's on SALE eight now on Amazon for ONLY $1.20!!

How's THAT for an early Easter present???

Good book, kept me interested throughout the story.

This is the first book I’ve read by Peter Dudgeon and I liked it quite well. The main characters Daniel, Anna and Charlotte were engaging, and as the story unfolds there are some very unexpected surprises. I’ve given the book 3 stars instead of 4 because (I don’t want to put spoilers in this review) I thought that some parts of the story that are supposed to give us insight in the killer’s mind, were not as clear as they could have been. In fact, I found some parts quite confusing, lacking of detail and in fact they distracted me from the story.

Thank you NetGalley for allowing me to write a review for this book.

Please email me at cricketwinner@hotmail.com asap so I can put upy review on amazon

A good @who don it' mystery that has a mix of violence, romance and keeps you guessing up until the end.