DI Nikki Galena Series by Joy Ellis

5 Stars

I’ve been working my way through the DI Nikki Galena series by Joy Ellis on audible, listening to it mainly when driving. I can’t recommend this series enough, and the narrator, Henrietta Meire, does a superb job.

This is a complex, exciting and gripping series and I will be continuing to listen to them for as long as Joy Ellis writes them and Henrietta Meire narrates them! I love Nikki and Joseph as a team, and Cat and the rest of the wider gang. Also a big fan of Mickey and the gangs on the Greenborough estate.

Joy Ellis has created a brilliant set of characters and storylines and I hope that this will one day hit our TV screens!

The Setting
The Lincolnshire Fens: great open skies brood over marshes, farmland, and nature reserves. It is not easy terrain for the Fenland Constabulary to police: with remote Fen villages, dangerous and often misty lanes, and poor telephone coverage. There are still villages where the oldest residents have never set foot outside their own farmland. A visit to the nearest town is a major event. But it has a strange airy beauty to it, and above it all are the biggest skies you’ve ever seen.

• CRIME ON THE FENS ‘Mask Wars’
  The town is being terrorised by gangs of violent thugs, all wearing identical hideous masks. Then a talented young female student goes missing on the marsh and Nikki and Joseph find themselves joining forces with a master criminal in their efforts to save her. They need to look behind the masks, but when they do, they find something more sinister and deadly than they ever expected . . .
• SHADOW OVER THE FENS
  Two brutal killers are loose on the fens but who can DI Nikki Galena trust?
  Detective Nikki Galena’s friend and neighbour meets a tragic end but there’s more to his death than meets the eye . . . 
  And someone terrible from DS Joseph Easter’s past is back . . .
  A man is found executed on a piece of wasteland in Greenborough town
  The cold-blooded murder triggers terrible memories for DS Joseph Easter. Just when things seemed to be going well for DS Easter, he realises that the nightmare is coming back, threatening his career, his sanity, and maybe his life.
  In a breath-taking conclusion even Nikki begins to doubt DS Easter as he faces a race against time to save someone very close to him.
• HUNTED ON THE FENS
  A vicious criminal is targeting DI Nikki Galena and her team. One by one he will hunt them down and destroy their lives, unless she can stop him first
  DI Nikki Galena faces her toughest challenge yet. Can she save her team and herself from a cruel and determined adversary who will stop at nothing to harm Nikki and her colleagues? First she must work out who wants revenge against her or one of her detectives.
  And what is the connection between the series of attacks on the police and the mystery of woman found dead in a seemingly impregnable locked room?
• KILLER ON THE FENS
  DI Nikki Galena faces a personal challenge which will stretch her to the limit. She must fulfill her father’s dying wish and discover who the mysterious Eve is. Meanwhile a dead drug dealer is found on an abandoned airfield that the locals say is haunted. The trail of both mysteries will lead to the most shocking discovery of Nikki’s career and put her whole team in mortal danger.
• STALKER ON THE FENS
  Detective Nikki Galena’s friend thinks she has a deadly stalker …
  DI Nikki Galena’s friend Helen Brook is involved in a serious accident where she is trapped in a collapsed cellar. After her hard-won recovery, Helen is still getting flashbacks to a man she says was down there with her and who confessed to a murder. But no trace of this man can be found.
  Then Helen tells Nikki that someone is watching her. But is all this in her friend’s imagination and part of her post-traumatic stress?
  And why is Stephen Cox back in town? He’s the villain who tore Nikki’s life apart and he seems to have returned for revenge.
  Before long the whole town is on the verge of hysteria and her friend’s fear will lead Nikki and Joseph on a very dangerous trail.
• CAPTIVE ON THE FENS
  A young woman’s body is found in a remote barn on the fens. Before she was killed, one of her fingers had been cut off. Who is inflicting this violence and why?
  Can DI Nikki Galena stop them before anyone else suffers? The young woman in the barn had been kept captive for some time. And the case shows strong similarities to an unsolved murder in Derbyshire. When another woman is found alive with similar injuries the case grows even more complicated.
  At the same time, the Fenland police have received intelligence that the ruthless criminal Freddy Carver plans to make Greenborough the hub for his new enterprise. DI Nikki Galena is desperate to track down Freddie Carver and make sure that he does not put down roots in the Fens, but finding him is not easy. And what’s his connection to the kidnapped girls?
  And who is the woman being held captive in a remote location? DI Nikki Galena must rally her team of detectives, while facing a traitor on the inside, as Nikki races against time to save more than one victim, including someone she cares deeply about.
• BURIED ON THE FENS
  A skeleton is unearthed from a shallow grave in the churchyard. But this was not an official burial. The victim was murdered decades ago. At the same time, Detective Nikki Galena and her team are investigating the brutal slaying of local businesswoman Madeline Prospero. She was a member of an exclusive and secretive drinking club called The Briar Patch. But they’ve got no suspects and no one is telling them the truth.
  Meanwhile, the buried skeleton leads them on a trail to the village of Quintin Eaudyke. This is a troubled place. In the late seventies and eighties a reign of terror and abuse was unleashed on the close-knit population.
  When more women from the The Briar Patch come under threat, Nikki faces a race against time to stop the killing.
  Full of twists and turns, this is a crime thriller that will keep you turning the pages until the heart-stopping ending.
• THIEVES ON THE FENS
  DI Nikki Galena gets a series of anonymous calls. She is told the place, time, and who will die.
  But the messages are in a secret language used only by villains. Nikki and her team must decode the riddles and work out where the threats are coming from.
  Meanwhile, the fens have been hit by a series of “designer burglaries.” It appears that a new gang of thieves are stealing to order.
  And things get very close to home when a friend of Nikki’s mother dies suddenly and perhaps suspiciously.
  Do any of these events relate, and can Nikki stop the thieves on the fens, before anyone else dies?
• FIRE ON THE FENS
  The fens are burning and detective Nikki Galena faces a cat-and-mouse battle with a killer arsonist.
  Someone is lighting fires. First they target homes and businesses, but then a body is found at one of the crime scenes.
  More fires are lit. And at each one a single person dies. But the victims have led spotless lives and apparently there’s no connection between them.
  Meanwhile, the town is facing a very peculiar threat from a group of sinister Satanists led by a charismatic businessman.
  Who is burning with anger, and can Nikki stop them before anyone else dies?
• DARKNESS ON THE FENS
  A serial killer on a poisonous mission pushes Nikki and her team to their breaking point
  Revellers are flocking into Greenborough for the yearly Dark Greenborough Festival, a three-day event celebrating local folklore, superstition and the darker side of life.
  What the public doesn’t know is that there has been a warning sent to the police, saying that Greenborough will be a very dangerous place this year. The anonymous letter ends with the Latin phrase, Mors certa, hora incerta: Death is certain, the hour uncertain.
  DI Nikki Galena and her team soon discover this is no hoax, as people start dying from what appears to be alcoholic poisoning. Things rapidly escalate, and as the deaths get more horrific, Nikki realises they have a serial killer in their midst.
  A nightmare hunt for a killer during their busiest time of the year.
• HIDDEN ON THE FENS
  Detective Joseph Easter’s daughter discovers a cottage hidden in some trees on a large fenland farm. Someone has been living there. The farm-owner’s wife has been receiving sinister pagan artefacts, including a witch’s knife. Are they some sort of warning or message? Joseph and his daughter search the cottage and find an old satchel. Inside are photos of a beautiful girl, Jennifer Cowley. She went missing fifteen years ago. She had been stalked by a young man, who was convicted of her murder, even though her body was never found. WHEN DI NIKKI GALENA EXAMINES THE COTTAGE, SHE FINDS SOMETHING FAR WORSE. And in the satchel is a more recent photo of a girl who looks just like Jennifer. The man who killed Jennifer is recently out of prison. Has he struck again? At the same time, DC Cat Cullen and Dave Harris are trying to get evidence against a man who preys on widowed older women. Vernon Deacon is seemingly a pillar of society, with very influential friends. His victims are often not believed, so their job is not easy.
• SECRETS ON THE FENS
  One moonlit night, the bodies of two young people are discovered lying entwined on a blanket in the woods. The young man is clutching a red rose. It appears to be a lovers’ suicide pact . . .
  Until Detective Nikki Galena and DS Joseph Easter look more closely. Romeo and Juliet, as they decide to call them, were murdered somewhere else and brought to the woods. But why?
  Then another young couple are found dead, again beautifully posed as lovers. And Nikki knows they have a twisted serial killer on their hands. Who are the next victims?
  EVERYONE HAS SECRETS. BUT SOME PEOPLE WILL KILL TO KEEP THEM.
• FEAR ON THE FENS
  Now.
  In the beautiful gardens of Shelley House a shocking discovery is made. A blackened hand dangles over the side of a wheelbarrow. The horrific scent of burnt flesh lingers in the air.
  Detective Nikki Galena and Joseph Easter are called in to investigate.
  Twenty years ago.
  A family destroyed by tragic secrets. The scientist father who killed their gardener, before being murdered himself. The brother who disappeared, never to be seen again.
  Until now?
  Nikki and Joseph must find a man who’s been missing for two decades and unravel the painful past of a broken family before anyone else dies.
• GRAVES ON THE FENS
  It arrives in the morning. An old-fashioned airmail envelope addressed to Detective Nikki Galena. Inside, on a single sheet of blue airmail paper, are three words:
  You failed me.
  The second airmail envelope arrives at Nikki’s home address. The same message. Only this time, it’s followed by four names: Alexandra Cornfield, Ruth Baker, Bethany Lyons, Leanne Delaney.
  Four missing women. Four local women whose bodies were never found.
  The contents of the third letter, delivered by motorcycle courier, are even more disturbing.
  The letter leads directly to the discovery of a body buried in a shallow grave out on the Fens. And Nikki and her partner Detective Joseph Easter are plunged into a baffling murder investigation.
  Someone appears to be pursuing a personal vendetta against Nikki— and she has no idea who, or why. But one thing she does know: whoever it is is playing a very twisted game — and if Nikki and her team don’t stop them, more deaths will follow.
• ECHOES ON THE FENS
  Three days. Three murders. No leads . . . and a bloody big dog!
  The call comes at 6.30 a.m. Widowed Angela Sandford has been found dead in her expensively-furnished bungalow. An overdose, it would appear.
  But to Detective Nikki it doesn’t add up. Angela was planning a holiday next month. The trip of a lifetime. She had everything to live for.
  The following night there’s another death on Nikki’s patch. A fatal hit-and-run. A young woman deliberately mown down as she picked up a takeaway fish supper.
  The next day, a third suspicious death. The dead man is found sprawled on the dining room floor in his grand old house, blood soaking into the carpet.
  And Nikki’s mother was the last person to see him alive.
  In each case, there is no clue, no motive and no suspect. It’s up to Nikki and her team to find the link before more people die.