Born in a Burial Gown

DI Avison Fluke, Book 1

By: M. W. Craven

Narrated by: John Banks

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.

©2019 M. W. Craven (P)2019 Hachette Audio UK

Critic reviews

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

Craven Can Write

I’ve read his other series & was hoping I could find more. One of my favorite things is his protagonist isn’t a bad-boy-drunk, no one had killed his wife spawning his murderous rage; he’s not damaged. So many are these days. The plot is very twisty. The narrator has a nice range. This goes in my read-again-someday collection.

Wonderfully complex

It’s stories within stories. The author masterfully weaves all the elements of a murder, mystery & intrigue with the characters personal stories. It makes it feel so real. Another brilliant story by MW Craven. Brought to life by the excellent narrator John Banks.

Good start

Very good. I enjoyed this. I’ve read many other MW Craven books and they have been wonderful. I’m glad to read/listen to the first of another series. A good start. I want to read more about Fluke.

Great new series

A terrific start to a new series Can’t wait for the next book Hope I don’t have to wait long

LOVED IT

I just loved this book from start to finish.

I have got to say M.W. Craven, unlike many other authors, does not keep repeating phrases to increase the word count.
I applaud you Mr. Craven

Introducing DI Avison Fluke

4.25 Stars 🌟

I found MW Craven almost by accident and totally fell in love with his Washington Poe series. I went and found every book I could and just devoured that series (well, at least up until where the series is so far). Then I was able to read an ARC on his new Ben Koenig series. Yep, he is batting 1000 with me. So, when I found that there were two other books from an earlier series....man, I couldn't click the buy button fast enough.

This series introduces us to Avison Fluke. He is a completely different character from Washington Poe, but I like him. He has his faults...many of them, but all in all, he is a brilliant detective. (The two men DO have that trait in common)

One thing Mr. Craven does so well is to write police procedural books where the police teams under Fluke (and Poe) makes such amazing twists in logic, and such creative deductions. It is startling to see the path that the MC follows that sometimes makes you just stop and think, "Wow". This book is no different.

In this case a woman is found murdered and the killer had no intention of her body ever being found. I can honestly say that how he got from the murdered woman, to the scenario in which she was killed, to the actual killer....was brilliant. Just brilliant. And just a little bit crazy.....

So now off I go to start the next book in this series....can't wait.