Clem knows every inch of Watersmeet like the back of his hand. After all, he’s controlled crime here for most of his career. But after a shocking murder, he meets jaundiced yellow eyes shining out of the darkness beyond the houses on the village’s eerie southern slopes, and everything he thought he knew about the place is thrown into question.

Clem’s grown up with local legends, just like everyone else. But could the River Man be real, and might this creature be behind the recent mysterious killings? It’s a theory – and not one that his superiors want to hear. They’re more interested in courting soundbites and social media with their own wild explanations. Drugs? Gangs? Clem just doesn’t believe it.

Suspended, he takes matters into his own hands and strikes out into the woods behind the farm. Here, amongst the trees and hidden caves, he discovers more than he ever wanted to. Something that’s been hiding. Something that needs to be smoked out. Clem sets out to solve the village’s biggest crime ever, but at what cost?

I haven’t been able to find out anything about R. B. Croft but, as far as I can tell, ‘The River Man’ is a debut novel. It’s an Audible Original, ably narrated by Dominic West and is only available as an audiobook.

‘The River Man‘ is an engaging mix of Police Procedural and Creature Feature. It’s set in an English village but not the cosy southern villages that Miss Marple or Inspector Barnaby would be comfortable in but in the wilder, more remote North Pennines between Cumbria, Northumberland, and County Durham. The sense of place is important to the story both for the origin of The River Man legend and for shaping Clem, the policeman from whose point of view most of the story is told. He’s spent his entire career in the village and his approach to policing is based on a desire to keep the peace and help his neighbours.

Clem, who is at the end of his career and who has accepted a demotion so that he can carry on as a Special Policeman, is a well-crafted, engaging character who I was able to root for. His superiors on the other hand come across as ego-driven attention-seekers who have no respect either for the people in the village or the staff who work for them.

This isn’t a cosy mystery. The killings in the story were graphic and bloody and although two of them occurred off-stage, the mutilated remains were left on display.

His bosses don’t want Clem to be involved in the case. He’s seen as out-dated and his judgement is not respected. So, of course, he’s the only one who figures out what’s going on. Unable to get anyone to listen to him, he determines to find and stop the Riven Man alone.

I enjoyed the first half of the book, which set up the situation and introduced the characters and the place. I liked that R. B. Croft took the time to make the village and its people feel real.

The pace picked up for the confrontation between Clem and the creature, introducing a real sense of urgency and a high level of threat.

I was less satisfied with the ending of the story. It had a Happy Ever After feel that was too cosy for my taste and which clashed with the tone of the rest of the novel. It also ran a little long as the author felt the need to tie up everything neatly.

Still, it was an entertaining story that was well-suited to the audiobook format.