Friday, 8 November 2024

Burial Ground - Stephen B. King

Tammy and Greg meet at a party in the Perth hills and sneak away to a disused gravel pit to be alone. They are interrupted by two men burying something who then attack Greg and chase a naked Tammy throughout the night. She is found the next day, delirious and suffering hypothermia.


She tells Detective Sam Collins and Jenny Markham what she witnessed and reports Greg’s murder. But his body is found in a car wreck, and the crash report says he died because of alcohol and speed on a sharp bend. This casts doubt on Tammy’s story and Sam wonders if she imagined the incident.

Doubting the official crash report, he and Jenny investigate further and discover two serial killers, who have been burying their victims at the gravel pit, for seventeen years. Sam must lead a huge police task force to try find them before they kill again.

My Review

Burial Ground is actually the third in the Detective Sam Collins series. I haven't read the previous ones and it really didn't matter as this can be read as a stand-alone book. In many ways, this is quite an unusual read as the book is split into three parts. To begin with we have the set up for the discovery of the murders. Then in the second part we go back into the life of the murderers and see the reasons that they have become the psychotic serial killers they are. Finally, in the third part, our detective Sam wraps everything up and solves it all. This isn't the kind of murder mystery that you can try and solve alongside the detective. We're privy to lots of information that he isn't, and things are shown through the eyes of the murderers. This does make for a gripping and disturbing read.

I enjoyed Burial Ground and liked this slightly different approach to the storytelling. I did find that at times there was perhaps a little too much back story. I wasn't sure that we needed all of the extra details that we got. Some of the sex scenes were for me, a little much for this kind of read. Overall though, I was drawn into this disturbing read and wanted to know what was going to unfold and that hopefully, Sam would figure out who was behind it all.

Author Bio

I left Perth, Australia to go East and find fame and fortune in the music business as a long-haired rock guitarist. I wrote poems and music, and my band used to open for some pretty big groups in my wild days. I gave it all up for love and got married (as you do when the right one comes along). Then, real life took over, children came along and I threatened to write a book for so many years my long-suffering wife eventually pushed me into it by buying me a laptop and said: "No more excuses, do it." And so began this amazing journey.

My first book, Forever Night, was contracted and published by now defunct Totally Entwined Group 's Evidence Press. It features a returned veteran soldier who has suffered horrifically, physically and mentally to become a serial killer while hunting for his runaway wife. As an SAS soldier he is far more highly trained to kill and survive, than the cops are trained to stop him. If you enjoy dark, Scandinavian type crime thrillers, you will love this story.

That was followed by a trilogy, about the rise of a cop through the ranks from Detective to Detective Inspector, when his world falls apart. Domin8, is about a married man who is drawn into the dark world of online dating, until someone starts murdering his lovers. The Vigilante Taxi features a man who knows tragedy, his life has been full of it and with nothing to live for he becomes a vigilante during the night shift while driving his cab. When he falls in love, and wants to stop, it's too late; the cops and an underworld figure are closing in. Burial Ground, is about newly appointed Detective Inspector Sam Collins, who is handed the job of finding a serial killer who has been killing and burying his victims in an old disused gravel pit for seventeen years. He is a close to a pure psychotic evil as you will find, worse then Hannibal Lecter, or anything from the mind of the great Stephen King.

Repo saw me return to two characters from Forever Night. New private investigator husband and wife sleuths trying to save a man from jail for a murder he did not commit. He returns home from working in a mine to find his wife gone, bank accounts empty, and fully restored classic muscle car repossessed. When his wife's body is found, he is arrested for murder. Dillon and Jayne enter a world of illegal poker games, protected by the underworld, to find the real killer and free their first client.

Next, I wrote a beautiful love story/thriller about Jenny, who travels in time to save the world from an all consuming blight that was genetically modified. She falls in love in the past, but can only stay for thirty-three days. This was picked up by my new publisher: The Wild Rose Press of NY. They have also contracted a trilogy, called The Deadly Glimpses. Book 1 is called Glimpse, Memoir of a Serial Killer, and Book 2, Glimpse, The Beautiful Deaths have been released. Book 3, Glimpse, The Tender Killer will be released in three months. The trilogy follows the fortunes of two married colleges who are attracted to each other while working together to track down three serial murderers. What will the effect be on their marriages, and their relationship if they act on the desires they have?

Thrillers and crime genres have always fascinated me, and in particular, the dark world of serial killers. I love a good, unputdownable, thriller. You know, the kind you just want to read one more chapter of at three in the morning before bed, but you have to be up at six to go to work. Have I succeeded in creating stories that can take people to that place? Boy I hope so.

Check out my website and blog for fee stories and previews. www.stephen-b-king.com