BOOK REVIEW: The Road To Eden Is Overgrown

TITLE: The Road To Eden Is Overgrown; Part 1 of The Leveller Trilogy
AUTHOR: Dan Wheatcroft
PUBLISHED BY: Independant publishing

This tense page turner is Book 1 of the Leveller Trilogy, set in and around the city of Liverpool.

The story follows Nicks, a deniable government-sponsored agent, trying to control the inner-city streets and rid them of the criminal elements which he believes will remain untouchable if due process is followed. Nicks life has been turned upside-down after losing his wife to cancer and he is in a downward spiral, drinking himself to death; a furtive meeting one evening sets his life on a completely unanticipated route.

DCI Thurstan Baddeley is in charge of the local resourceful murder squad and all hell breaks out in and around the city. A local crime lord is gunned down in a quiet back alley and a string of execution-style killings follow. However, the hidden clues found along the way by the investigators all point to something much bigger than organised crime.

Baddeley has an understanding of what Nicks is up to but the Merseyside police have a duty to apprehend Nicks and a complex cat-and-mouse chase begins.

This is a fantastic police procedural action thriller with believable characters and a gripping plot; the procedural detail is first class, as are the described locations. The local connection (I'm from Liverpool), enabled me to visualise the locations throughout.

It is an exciting and very well written story with plenty of twists and turns; one small niggle is that the plot often jumped from place to place without warning.  Maybe a suggestion that this is going to happen would help, as it was a little confusing at times.

There is plenty of action and sub-plots which I guess are all tied-up together in the Leveller series of three books; the answers probably won’t be revealed until the very last page of the trilogy. I’m eager to find out by reading the other two books in the series, Ask the River and No Room For The Innocent.

The author has written an intriguing and unusual story which is somewhat complicated at times. However, I found it an enjoyable read and definitely recommend it.

Reviewer - Anne Pritchard