Tag Archives: book-review

Death Nest: The Disappearance of Simon Dillon

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Coming up with imaginative ways to publicise my novels can be a challenge. In the case of my supernaturally tinged mystery thriller Death Nest, I’ve run a gamut from the serious (how this is my most personal novel) to pranks (such as this fake interview that I’m pleased to say tricked a few readers, based on the comments). My latest attempt, a short film, is more in the latter category. Death Nest: The Disappearance of Simon Dillon is a meta-mockumentary that imagines the White Nest, a sinister and dangerous organisation within the novel, is real.

Also, this version of the film is slightly different to the version I previously uploaded on Patreon (if you saw it there already). I’ve made a couple of minor changes. Let’s call this version the “Director’s Cut”. We can even start a rumour that I didn’t get to finish it properly originally due to “studio interference”, if you like, instead of the more mundane truth that I wanted to add a couple of cutaways and a scary additional visual tweak at the end (that I won’t spoil).

The film pretends that because I recklessly detailed what they do in the book, the White Nest decided to silence me. Tommy Rogers, a private investigator looking into my disappearance, interviews former colleagues and friends. It degenerates into cheesy pseudo-Blair Witch style nonsense in the finale, but I thought, why not go the whole hog? With any luck, it will intrigue those of you who haven’t read the novel into picking up a copy. It will also make a great Christmas present for that difficult-to-buy-for relative. Here’s the film in full. I hope you find it entertaining.

Death Nest features a gripping central mystery, a romantic subplot, coming-of-age drama, and moments of horror and humour. To further whet your appetite, here’s the blurb from the back of the book.

From the author of Spectre of Springwell Forest and The Irresistible Summons… A nail-biting new mystery.

After his young son Ben writes a disturbing story about murdering a boy in a forest, widower Nick Unwin is alarmed by eerie parallels between his son’s behaviour and that of his younger brother Jason, prior to his inexplicable disappearance twenty years previously. This tragic past returns to haunt Nick when he sees an image of his long-lost brother in a newly released film.

Fearing history will repeat itself, Nick decides to investigate, along with Tanith, an old flame from his early teenage years, with dark secrets of her own connected to Jason’s disappearance. But as they delve deeper into the labyrinthine mysteries of their past, long-buried memories resurface. Nick is forced to face the terrible fear that has plagued him for decades: Was he responsible for the death of his brother?

A riveting coming-of-age thriller exploring traumatic sibling relationships, parental fears, and the misleading nature of memory, Death Nest is Simon Dillon’s most gripping novel yet.

Additional potential Christmas presents can be found in other published novels from my back catalogue. These include horror, thrillers, children’s adventure stories, dystopian sci-fi tales, and my recent forays into fantasy with my novel Ravenseed (about which I have written here) and a companion piece anthology, The Dark Forest Within (about which I have written here).

Death Nest is available in paperback or on Kindle from Amazon here (in the US) and here (in the UK). It is also available via Draft2Digital and its various outlets, including Barnes and Noble, Apple Books, and Smashwords (click here).

(Header image created by author in Canva.)

Happy New Year!

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Photo by Natalie Kinnear on Unsplash

The Dillon Empire hereby wishes you a very Happy New Year, and hopes you have a splendid 2025. Tradition dictates that l set out my main writing plans for the year ahead, so here’s what I hope to achieve.

Since August, I’ve been researching, outlining, and creating character profiles for my next novel. It’s the first in a series of dark mystery thrillers with a supernatural edge featuring a private detective and her assistant investigating a particularly baffling murder. Each of these novels will be a standalone mystery, but a bigger mystery will start to reveal itself in the background as the novels progress. As you can see, this is a hugely ambitious project as I’ve not consciously undertaken the writing of a series before (The George Hughes Trilogy was an accident in that respect, so doesn’t really count). At any rate, I am about to start writing the first draft of the first novel, so I’ll keep you updated on progress.

Also, this year, I might release another of my novels: horror-thriller mystery The Hobbford Giant. I’m still shipping that one around agents and publishers, but if I draw a blank, I may self-publish it. Alternatively, I might self-publish another volume of short stories (probably some of my fantasy tales, a few of which have previously appeared on Medium and Substack, and some of which have never been published before). I can’t say for sure which way I’ll leap, but one or the other of those will hopefully be available by the end of the year.

On top of this, I aim to write a clutch of new short stories, as well as pen another significant segment of my epic sequel to an as-yet unpublished children’s fantasy novel I wrote ten years ago, tentatively entitled The Faerie Gate (though that title will change). I had hoped to make progress on that novel last year, but that didn’t happen for various reasons; mainly, I’d bitten off more than I could chew, and something had to give. However, this year, I hope I’ll have the window to get another chunk finished. The novel is about half finished at present, and if I can get to two-thirds finished by the end of the year, that would be splendid. It’s turned into a bit of a monster in terms of length, so this novel could wind up being divided into separate volumes akin to The Lord of the Rings. But we’ll see. At present, I still think of it as one novel.

Beyond all that, I plan to revise and polish the mystery novel I wrote last year. I call it False Witness at present, even though that isn’t the real title (I’m keeping it a secret, for now). In addition, if The Hobbford Giant fails to get snapped up by agents and publishers, I’m going to send out A Thorn in Winter; another mystery novel which I originally wrote in 2022. As you can see, I’m not giving up on that front. Who knows? Perhaps this will be the year I find a mainstream publisher (I’ve had novels traditionally published in small indie presses before, but not by any of the big guns).

It will be interesting to see where I get to with all the above by the end of the year. I’m sure I’ll be immensely busy. In the meantime, thank you for supporting my writing. Again, I wish you all a very Happy New Year.