Seldom-seen relatives one only catches up with at Christmas can be difficult to buy presents for. However, most people love a nail-biting, page-turning mystery thriller. To that end, I humbly suggest my recently released novel Death Nest.
I’ve written about this novel a little on Medium, principally in this Orson Welles-ish faux-interview prank designed to intrigue readers (I interview one of the supporting characters). I’ve also written a lot about it here, for example in this piece, which is probably as close as I’m ever going to get to a baring-my-soul, personal essay-type article. In it, I discuss the real-life fears and traumas that metaphorically and emotionally informed the novel.
But if that makes it all sound heavy and depressing, don’t be put off! Death Nest is first and foremost a gripping thriller with a touch of romance, a smidgen of coming-of-age drama, and the odd moment of supernaturally tinged horror. There are also a few funny bits, and that’s important in any novel if you ask me, purely to provide contrast.
Here’s the blurb from the back of the book to give you an idea of the plot:
From the author of Spectre of Springwell Forestand 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.
If you want to try before you buy, the first three chapters of Death Nest are available to read on Medium in Fictions. Here’s chapter one.
Of course, Death Nest isn’t the only novel I have available for potential Christmas presents. I’ve also written other mystery horror thrillers, children’s adventure stories, dystopian sci-fi tales, and one or two other things. For a full list of my published novels, click 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 Smashwords and its various outlets (click here).
My new mystery thriller novel Death Nest is out now. I’ve been writing a lot about it recently, from many different angles. Here’s a summary of what I’ve been discussing, with links to the articles in question. First though, here’s a brief idea of what the novel is about.
A widower fears his young son is cursed when he shows disturbing behaviour akin to that of his younger brother, before he vanished without a trace twenty years previously. Gnawing dread that history will repeat itself is inherent throughout this modern gothic mystery novel. It’s also a coming-of-age romance with hints of the supernatural, exploring traumatic sibling relationships, parental worries, and the misleading nature of memory.
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 Nick’s 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 a repeat of history, 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?
The following articles explore different aspects of the novel and the making of it. I have worded them carefully to avoid plot spoilers.
This story is quite personal for me, as it has been informed (in broad metaphorical terms) by the sectioning of my youngest brother following drug abuse, as well as my own fears about the future of my autistic youngest son. The article above was slightly written through gritted teeth, as I’ve revealed a lot more of my personal life than I’m normally accustomed to, but I hope this provides some valuable insights.
Various locations in southwest England, as well as my home city of Oxford, were chosen as a setting. This article also touches on other research aspects, and some of the ways in which the novel was rewritten.
Here I discuss the initial idea for the novel, and how it evolved, including an abandoning of almost all the original premise, and the switching of the protagonist’s gender from female to male (my horror-thriller novel protagonists are usually female). I also mention other novels and a few films that informed the story.
The five-star raves are starting to trickle in! Check out some reader feedback here.
Death Nest is in paperback or on Kindle from Amazon (click here for the UK, and here for the US). It’s also available from Smashwords and its various outlets.
The first reviews for my latest novel, mystery thriller Death Nest, are starting to trickle in. I’m thrilled to tell you they are five-star raves! I’m extremely pleased readers are finding this book as gripping and entertaining as I had hoped. My fears that the story would prove too painfully personal (for reasons discussed here) seem to have been unfounded. I’m glad.
Let’s take a look at what people are saying.
“Once I started reading this, I couldn’t put it down. The mystique of the storyline drew me in and held my attention until the very end.” – Joseph M Zobel, Amazon.
“I couldn’t put it down because the twists and turns kept me on my toes. Dillon’s deep dives into characters, narrative, mystery, and intrigue kept me totally engaged. There were no lulls… I was sorry when it ended.” – Annabelle Colbert, Amazon.
“The perfect pre-Halloween read. A wonderful combination of dark and supernatural forces with moral dilemmas in life that we can all relate to, and a thread of romance that runs right through the story… Thoroughly enjoyable (if deeply disturbing at times) and hard to put down from start to finish.” – Saltram, Amazon.
If you’ve read and enjoyed Death Nest, please do add a review to Amazon or Goodreads (or ideally both). It doesn’t have to be long or eloquent. A one-liner saying you enjoyed it is fine. I seek reviews not to massage my ego (though obviously good reviews are encouraging) but because they are absolutely vital for independent writers like yours truly. Reviews mean the algorithms show my books to more people who potentially buy them. As such, reviews literally put food on my table, so a huge thank you to all of you who take the time to write them. It is so, so appreciated.
If you’ve not read Death Nest, here’s the blurb from the back of the book to whet your appetite.
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.
Death Nest is available in paperback or on Kindle from Amazon (click here for the UK, and here for the US). It’s also available from Smashwords and its various outlets.
My latest novel, the mystery thriller Death Nest, has recently been released. Lately, I’ve been exploring different aspects of this novel, which as well as dealing in page-turning suspense also features coming-of-age elements, a touch of romance, and the odd horror moment (especially in the latter stages). It’s also possibly my most “personal” novel to date (as I’ve discussed elsewhere), with a variety of influences and inspirations informing the book.
Here, I want to share a few insights into the settings, research, and revisions that went into the creation of the novel. Beginning with the settings, I should point out that the town of Corthpothan in the novel is fictional, but slightly based on the real Cornish village Porthcothan. I visited this lovely area on the north Cornwall coast a few years ago with the family, at the height of summer.
Porthcothan beach. Photo by Zara Dillon.
If you drive past, it looks deceptively uninteresting, but if you walk the short distance along the sand of the small inlet next to the village, it widens out into a vast sandy beach. The sea has phenomenal waves, so it is great for surfers. The area is bordered by a spectacular rugged coastline that boasts caves and gorgeous rock pools. Some of the latter are great for children to swim in (if one is concerned about the ferociousness of the sea waves and strong currents).
We had a fantastic time here, but at the same time, the details of the area were carefully logged away in my mind, knowing they might one day make their way into a novel. As for other settings that wound up appearing in the novel, these include the lovely Bagley Woods on Boars Hill, Oxford. In fact, the opening movement of the novel features a variety of Oxford locations, including the King’s Arms pub; a real place, which used to be a regular watering hole of mine. The story also includes scenes in the Magdalen Street cinema (now sadly closed), and Port Meadow, which is another fabulous place to go for walks if you ever visit Oxford, especially if you’re a keen birdwatcher.
Beyond that, the sinister Darkfire Forest is inspired by a few different woodland areas in and around where I live in Devon. Of course, eerie, possibly haunted forests have cropped up before in my novels Spectre of Springwell Forest, but what takes place in Death Nest is a little different. Here’s a photograph I took a while ago that sets the tone for the Darkfire Forest.
Photo by author.
Much of my research for this novel came about from simply checking details about places I already knew, making sure I either rendered them accurately, or deliberately changed them (as was the case with the name Porthcothan). The novel also dealt with certain subjects with which I am already greatly familiar (film production, for instance). However, some more in-depth research took place into dark subjects like human trafficking and brainwashing. I also had to research pagan folklore quite a bit, which is where I discovered and adopted the name Damara for the ancient spirit that may (or may not) influence events in the story. But I also made up a great deal too.
The initial draft had a lot more overtly supernatural stuff included. I cut or greatly reduced much of this, deciding a greater ambiguity over such incidents was preferable. There are still plenty of spooky edges in the final text, and one can read the supernatural into the events. But at the same time, there are enough doubts and questions to leave such matters up to the reader, rather than forcing them into a particular perspective.
Death Nest is available in paperback or on Kindle from Amazon (click here for the UK, and here for the US). It’s also available from Smashwords and its various outlets.
Here’s another taster of my latest mystery thriller novel, Death Nest. This excerpt is taken from chapter 7; a flashback chapter in which the protagonist, Nick, meets the enigmatic Tanith, in his early teens. The excerpt begins as Nick is looking after his younger brother Jason, playing a game with him.
Created by author in Canva.
For the best part of an hour, we rushed along the stream, following the dusty footpath away from the village green to the south, running a little way uphill, parallel to farmland and clusters of tall hedges and spinneys. Along the way, Jason and I selected our usual weapons of choice from the various sticks that lay around, all the better to shoot the marauding malevolent aliens on the strange planet where we had crash landed. I threw myself more vigorously than usual into the pew-pew of shooting, and we would often take cover together behind rocks, trees, and bushes, looking ahead into the distance and blasting alien threats from afar. Sometimes we would attack. Other times we would be on the run. For Jason, it was exhilarating and fun. I enjoyed it too.
Ultimately, our game petered out, but we decided to keep walking. I knew eventually we’d reach a small cluster of cottages on our left that lay on the southern border of the Darkfire Forest. The stream continued south to its source somewhere in the woods, skewing right with the building site of Wally’s Wonderland in the distance, further up the hill. I decided this was where we would halt and head home for lunch.
More than ever, reality seemed heightened. The stillness, sweaty heat, glimmering sunshine dancing through branches, bouncing off the stream… It all fused together, slowing time down into a kind of meandering trance. Jason and I had enjoyed a boisterous time together, but now we ambled along the stream path in silence, as the cottages at the foot of Darkfire Forest came into view. They lay on the opposite side of the path, their thatched roofs and well-tended vegetable gardens gradually revealed as the path wound to the right. Absorbed in the hazy tranquillity, I halted.
That’s when I first heard the singing.
The high, clear, beautiful voice of a girl rang out across the stream.
At first, I couldn’t see her, but her song carried through the still air like a magic spell. I tried to locate the source of the music. My eyes wandered across the water, through a patch of reed and tussock, to the foot of a great oak tree. A young teenage girl emerged from behind the trunk, still singing. She wore a bright summer dress and held a marigold. I couldn’t see her face properly, as her long auburn hair hid her features. Almost ritualistically, she took the marigold to the edge of the stream and began to pluck at the petals, throwing them into the water one at a time. I watched in fascination, listening to catch the words of her song.
It’s over again, no longer together.
But dry your tears, they’re not forever.
Another comes, to take the rein.
The cycle begins again.
Earth, air, water, flame.
The cycle begins again.
We watched for a while, before Jason got bored, wandered to a nearby willow tree, and started to climb. I remained transfixed, staring at the girl beneath the oak tree, plucking the petals and throwing them into the stream. After about a minute, she turned and caught my eye. Bright blue eyes shone across the water, captivating me in their gaze. For the briefest of seconds, she appeared startled, but the flicker of surprise passed from her face almost immediately. She smiled, as though she were expecting me. A strange dizziness came upon me, and I stumbled where I stood.
The girl resumed her singing, continuing until she had finished plucking the petals. She discarded the stalk with the final note, staring across the water towards me. I remained arrested in the dreamlike stillness, sensing something had taken place between us, though I didn’t know what.
‘I’m Tanith,’ the girl said.
‘Nick,’ I replied. I indicated my brother, who was busy climbing the willow tree. ‘That’s Jason.’
Tanith’s eyes made a brief dart in Jason’s direction, before snapping back to me.
‘How old are you?’
‘Fourteen. How old are you?’
‘Fifteen. Come over here a moment.’
‘Why?’
‘I want to ask you something, but I want to whisper.’
Too intrigued to refuse, I made my way down the bank to a rocky place in the stream. The crossing was easy enough, but I took more care than usual, not wanting to trip and fall in the water, thus embarrassing myself in front of Tanith.
Whilst climbing the bank on the other side, I again became acutely aware of the bubbling stream, still air, hazy heat, distant birdsong… It all blended like a peculiar enchantment. I couldn’t take my eyes off Tanith and wondered at how she drew me in like a fish on a hook. Suddenly self-conscious, I turned away, staring determinedly at the grass, the reeds, and back across to Jason, busy having fun in the willow tree.
‘Look at me,’ Tanith said.
Her tone was commanding, but beguiling. She appraised me, and I felt uncomfortable, as though I were standing before her naked.
Presently, she nodded. ‘Scruffy, a bit smelly, but you’ve got kind eyes. I think you’re safe.’
‘Safe?’
‘I can tell straight away if people are safe. It’s a gift. My grandma taught me how to do it. Look into a person’s eyes and see inside their soul.’
Tanith was certainly beautiful, but all this weirdness started to annoy me. ‘Look, what did you drag me across here for?’
‘I wanted to ask you a question.’
‘What question?’
Tanith leaned closer. My heart began to speed up, and once again I felt dizzy. For one thrilling, terrifying second, I thought she was going to kiss me. But then she placed her mouth close to my ear and whispered.
Death nest, Simon dillon, 2023.
Want know what Tanith whispered to Nick? Check out Death Nest, which is out now in paperback or on Kindle from Amazon (click here for the UK, and here for the US). It’s also available from Smashwords and their various outlets.
What inspired, influenced, or otherwise informed my latest novel, Death Nest? It has a strange history. I’ve already spoken on this blog about how intensely personal the book is on a metaphorical level, but whilst the novel frames this by exploring traumatic sibling relationships, parental fears, and the misleading nature of memory, the genesis of the story itself came from an altogether different source.
A cursory glance at my scribbled notes informs me the first time I conceived this story was in early 2019, but the premise is rather different. At that point, the working title was simply Film Censor and the protagonist was female. She worked at the British Board of Film Classification in London (BBFC), where films are given certificates (U, PG, 12A, 15, and 18). Here, she views a film that features an image of what appears to be a young girl who mysteriously vanished during her childhood. How has the director managed to capture this young girl on film? Is it a ghost? Or someone who simply looks like her?
Remarkably, this premise is almost identical to the film Censor, which came out in cinemas a couple of years later (though that film takes a very different turn from what I would have done with my story). I ditched the idea of making the protagonist work for the BBFC, as unlike Censor, my story wasn’t really about the issues around film censorship. Instead, I had the protagonist be a member of the general public who sees this image of her childhood friend at a public screening in the cinema. But at this point, the story went in an entirely different direction to what happens in the final version of Death Nest. I won’t say what else was in my original outline, as I may explore the subsequent plot threads in another novel at a later date.
However, when I had the dream I discussed in this article, the idea for the book radically changed. After a long period of reflection, I ditched everything except the idea that the protagonist sees the image of what appears to be a ghost at a cinema screening. The rest of the story was built from scratch, and it became a much more intensely personal work, focused on coming-of-age elements in flashbacks, and the more sinister revelations that come to light in the second half of the novel. At a certain point, I broke with tradition and switched the protagonist’s gender to male. All my other novels in the gothic mystery horror-thriller tradition feature female protagonists.
With a radically new plot outline, character profiles, and so forth, I proceeded to write the first draft in early 2020, with the working title The White Nest. Afterwards, I changed that title to Death Rattle, which eventually became Death Nest. As I’ve written about elsewhere, after completing the first draft, I set the manuscript aside for a long time, and the subsequent to-ing and fro-ing between beta readers in which the final draft was shaped isn’t worth recounting in detail here.
Perhaps unusually, the tales that informed this novel aren’t necessarily supernatural thrillers or horror stories. Instead, the influences were an eclectic bunch ranging from Great Expectations by Charles Dickens to (bizarrely) films like romantic comedy Adventureland. Obviously, my novel bears no resemblance to the latter, but it does feature a somewhat second-rate theme park as a setting, like that film. As for the Dickens classic, themes of thwarted adolescent love are in my story too, though the object of my protagonist’s affection, although enigmatic, is certainly not cruel like Estella. Elsewhere, the brainwashing elements present in A Clockwork Orange, The Manchurian Candidate, and The Parallax View also lingered in the back of my mind while writing.
Death Nestis out now. 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.
Get your copy today! Available in paperback or on Kindle from Amazon (click here for the UK, and here for the US). It’s also available from Smashwords and their various outlets.
My mystery thriller novel Death Nesthas recently been published. With all the will-readers-like-it anxiety that comes with a new release, this one particularly has my stomach in knots, as it is one of my most “personal” novels. Written in early 2020, I experienced an unusually intense time getting it on the page, in a way that hasn’t happened with any other novel. This one felt painful to write, and by the end, I was exhausted, emotionally drained, and didn’t even care if the manuscript was any good.
In the aftermath, for the first time ever, I found myself unable to write fiction. The voices in my head, normally yelling over each other to be heard, fell silent. It was frightening. I was worried I’d done a Truman Capote and wouldn’t be able to write anything of significance ever again. This lasted for the rest of 2020, and when I finally got back on the horse the following year, I was terrified. Could I write another novel?
Thankfully, I could. In retrospect, certain other factors besides those I’m about to discuss doubtless contributed to my inability to write in 2020. A global pandemic and redundancy from a day job in television I’d held for over twenty years will do that for you. Nonetheless, Death Nest (or The White Nest as it was tentatively titled in those days) carried a lot of personal baggage. When I finally reread the manuscript, it was much better than I remembered, and whilst I could see a fair bit of raw nerve jabbing in the story, for anyone else reading, I suspected they wouldn’t detect the same anguish. Instead, I hoped they’d think of it purely as a nail-biting mystery with hints of the supernatural, akin to previous novels I’d published, like Spectre of Springwell Forest and The Irresistible Summons.
Of course, describing a novel as “personal” is a little silly, as I consider all my fiction writing personal in some way. At the same time, I would be foolish not to acknowledge when a story is more directly rooted in personal experience. Children of the Folded Valley, my most successful book to date by far, was previously the most “personal” of my novels, as it is directly informed by some of my own experiences. In contrast, Death Nest is every bit as personal, if not more so, but not on a literal level. It is personal on a metaphorical, emotional level.
What’s it about?
The narrative concerns a widower who fears his young son is cursed when he shows disturbing behaviour akin to that of the widower’s younger brother, before he vanished without a trace in a supposedly haunted forest, twenty years previously. In fact, the protagonist, Nick, thinks there’s been a curse on his entire family ever since his late entrepreneur father developed land considered sacred in pagan folklore into a theme park.
The novel flashes back to coming-of-age incidents in Nick’s early teenage years, including his first love. Several mysterious incidents feed into the subsequent narrative, including the baffling disappearance of Nick’s younger brother. Nick has felt a weight of guilt and responsibility for years, as he was in the forest with his brother when he vanished, but has no memory of what took place, beyond a vivid recollection of fleeing the forest in terror, covered in blood and bruises.
Why is this one so personal?
Fears that Nick’s young son will end up likewise being lost are at the core of why this novel is personal to me. Time to grit my teeth and tell you the personal stuff: My youngest brother, ten years my junior, went on a deep dive into drugs during his mid-teens. He got worse and worse, and wound up being diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia. My parents had to have him sectioned in late 2005. They had no choice, as he’d come to believe they were trying to kill him, and he was living in their coal shed with a plastic bin bag of items that weren’t “contaminated”.
Seeing this happen to my beloved younger brother, with whom I had once been so close, was distressing beyond my ability to put into words. His “disappearance” in this respect has often felt worse than death. I have grieved him many times, and also felt a sense of guilt over it for complicated reasons. For instance, I wonder if my partying days as a teenager (which didn’t involve drugs) were something to which he aspired. In my darkest moments, I ask painful questions: Was my love for drug-addled bands like The Prodigy a bad influence? Was I wrong to show him Trainspotting, a film I thought condemned drug use, but that he later claimed turned him on to drugs?
Flash-forward several years, to 2019. In my youngest son, I see eerie parallels to my youngest brother. He is sharp, quick-witted, and shares the dark sense of humour my brother had at the same age. He is incredibly clever, just like my brother was before his brain was destroyed by drugs. Complicating matters, my youngest son has an autism diagnosis, and is struggling in many respects, in school (with school culture rather than academically), in self-esteem, and socially. I sense the walls of a world hostile to the neuro-diverse moving in to crush him, and I am powerless to help.
An upsetting dream proved a catalyst for the novel
Whilst on holiday that summer, I had a vivid and profoundly upsetting dream. This dream appears, in a slightly modified form, in the novel. I saw my youngest son as an old man, holding the toy dinosaur we’d bought him that holiday, which he loved. In the dream, I know that my wife and I, and his older brother, are all long since dead. I saw him alone, with no wife, children, relatives, or friends. He sat in a room filled with packed boxes, and an orderly from an old person’s home arrived to take him away. My son put down the toy dinosaur on his chair as he stood. The orderly asked if he wanted to bring it, but my son shook his head, saying he didn’t need it anymore. The last connection with the halcyon days where he shared in the love and laughter of our family had been severed.
I awoke from this dream. It was early, and everyone else was still asleep. I took a shower, then curled up in the corner as the water ran, overwhelmed with grief. Everything collided in my head; the grief of what had happened to my younger brother, and the anguish I felt at this vision of a possible future for my youngest son. I didn’t necessarily expect my son to get into drugs, but I feared he would wind up in a future where he was completely alone. It was unbearable. I daresay anyone who loves their child would feel the same.
The upshot
When I wrote Death Nest, it was an exorcism of sorts; a cathartic exercise in turning these complicated emotions — grief over my brother, fear for my son — into a page-turning mystery. As I indicated earlier, I hoped that the anguish in which this story was conceived would not register with those who read the novel. So far, that appears to be the case, as not only was the beta-reader feedback for Death Nest overwhelmingly positive, but it was taken exactly how I had hoped, as a gripping and sinister thriller.
I hope you’ll forgive me for being so personal in this article. I wanted to provide a glimpse into what was ultimately a positive experience that helped me come to terms with some of these complicated feelings concerning my brother and my son. I don’t pretend to be a psychiatrist, and I know everyone will approach such personal matters differently based on personality, temperament, upbringing, culture, and so on. However, writing fiction is a powerful tool that has helped me process a lot of difficult feelings and events. I’m sure I’m not alone in experiencing this.
I hope this has been insightful. My novel Death Nest is out now in paperback or on Kindle from Amazon (click here for the UK, and here for the US). It’s also available from Smashwords and their various outlets.
NOTE: This article originally appeared in The Writing Cooperative on Medium.
Here’s a taster of my new novel Death Nest, taken from the beginning of chapter 1.
Image created by author in Canva.
This is the third time in as many weeks I’ve been called into school to speak to Ben’s teacher. Only last week, Mrs Trench complained of him swearing in class. The week before he got into a scuffle with another child. This time, the incident is serious enough to involve the head teacher, Mr Brown – a scrawny young man in his late twenties. From behind his desk, he addresses me in condescending tones.
‘Mr Unwin, we’re concerned about Ben. Deeply concerned. As you know, he’s been swearing at teachers, getting into fights…’
‘He got into one fight, and that was self-defence,’ I cut in.
‘He really ought to have found a teacher, and resolved the matter that way,’ says Mrs Trench, a thin, wraithlike figure sitting to my left.
I shrug. ‘And that teaches him what, exactly? Do you think crying to HR is going to help him when he gets treated unfairly in the workplace? People have to fight their own battles. Ben didn’t start that fight, but he finished it fairly and proportionately. The fact that he’s learned that at his age is reason to be proud of him, not to punish him.’
Mr Brown sighs. ‘We’re not here to discuss that, or the swearing.’
‘I really don’t see why you were so shocked by the swearing.’
‘We were concerned about what he might be watching on television,’ Mrs Trench says.
I laugh. ‘Children pick up swear words at school and often don’t know what they mean. He’s seven, for God’s sake! He wasn’t trying to be aggressive.’
Mr Brown passes me an open exercise book. ‘Ben wrote this, as part of an English exercise to write a story about taking a walk in the woods. We expected the children to write about trees, blackberry bushes, acorns, conkers, animals they might have glimpsed, and so on. However, Ben’s story is… somewhat different.’
I scan the story. Ben’s handwriting is excellent, and his word usage articulate and vivid. I get that familiar surge of pride. He’s a very bright child.
As the story progresses, my pride turns to unease.
I took Sebastian into the woods to kill him. He didn’t know, and I didn’t want to tell him, because I knew how much killing him would hurt. Sebastian doesn’t understand, but there’s bad inside him, and the only way to get the bad out of him, is for him to die. So I took him deep into the trees, where we were all alone, and no one would hear him screaming. Then I stabbed him with a dagger I’d secretly brought with me. There was a lot of blood. He cried and kept asking me to stop. But I didn’t stop. I had to get rid of the bad inside him.
At the end of the story is a gruesome illustration featuring a stick figure next to a tree with a dagger in his hand, standing over another stick figure on the ground, who appears to be bleeding out. Mr Brown and Mrs Trench scrutinise me as I look up from the picture. It is understandable why they found Ben’s story alarming. But I suppress my own creeping fears and shrug.
‘Yes, it’s a disturbing story, but lots of children write about dark things to express morbid fascination and macabre curiosity about violence and death. Typically, they grow out of this later in life, and don’t become killers.’
‘Do you know who this Sebastian might be?’ Mr Brown asks.
I shake my head. ‘We don’t know a Sebastian, unless there’s someone called Sebastian that Ben knows in school. Is there?’
‘There are no Sebastians in the school,’ Mrs Trench says.
‘Look, obviously he’s just made him up, like the rest of the story. He doesn’t actually want to kill anyone.’
‘What do you make of this bit where he talks about killing Sebastian, to get rid of the bad inside him?’ Mr Brown asks.
‘I couldn’t say.’
‘We think it might be advisable to seek counselling for Ben. Between the fights, the swearing, and now this violent story, the opinion of a professional…’
‘The incidents are unrelated,’ I interrupt. ‘Yes, this is a peculiar story, but I really think it’s nothing to be concerned about. As I said, children often express themselves in unsettling ways that have a rawness, curiosity, and honesty to them, that perhaps…’
‘Mr Unwin, please remind me what it is that you do for a living?’
‘I help design computer games, but I don’t see how that’s relevant.’
‘My point is you are not medically qualified to make judgements about Ben’s mental wellbeing.’
‘As his father, I think I am exceptionally qualified. There is nothing wrong with my son.’ I glare at Mr Brown and Mrs Trench, trying to remain calm.
Mrs Trench exchanges glances with Mr Brown and addresses me with a horrible expression of phoney pity. ‘Forgive me for asking Mr Unwin, but how long has it been since your wife passed?’ I stand, fuming inwardly. ‘I’m finished here. Thank you for your concern.’
Death nest, Simon dillon, 2023.
Death Nest is out now, in paperback or on Kindle from Amazon (click here for the UK, and here for the US). It’s also available from Smashwords and their various outlets.
This gripping mystery thriller was originally written in early 2020. It is one of my most “personal” works to date, and I’ll expound more on why in a future article. In the meantime, I’m immensely excited to finally have this story out for you all to read and enjoy.
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.
Get your copy today! Available in paperback or on Kindle from Amazon (click here for the UK, and here for the US). It’s also available from Smashwords and their various outlets.
Look out for more about Death Nest on this blog over the next few weeks, including excerpts, information on inspiration and influences, and other exclusive insights.
My new mystery thriller novel Death Nest is out on the 1st of October and available for pre-order at Amazon and Smashwords. Here’s a final teaser image as we count down to the release with just one day to go!
A cryptic comment on today’s image: What is the White Nest?
Simon Dillon Books 
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