As an early devotee of Mick Herron (of Slow Horses fame), I took note when he praised an earlier instalment in British crime author Simon Mason’s now-four-book-strong DI Wilkins series. This “clashing duo” police procedural series features Detective Inspector Ray Wilkins, a handsome, posh-educated black investigative star, in tandem with and grinding against DI Ryan Wilkins, a trailer-trash opposite with instinctive investigative skills. Ray is smooth and cautious, Ryan brash and crass. Throughout the series, the author makes marvelous hay with the possibilities of this duality, bringing the reader to love both of them, even in opposition, as they often seem to be. The fourth book, A Voice in the Night, sees the Oxford-based pair tackling the baffling murder of an elderly professor in pyjamas, far from home. Unlike many crime writers assembling ongoing series, Simon Mason is utterly unafraid of upending the lives of his heroes, again and again, and in A Voice in the Night, Ryan in particular faces challenges that echo with classical tragedy. The author is an impeccable plotter and the writing, ebbing and flowing between lyrical place digressions, dramatic action scenes, and efficient procedural matter, is wonderful. As a prolific mystery reader, I cannot recall being taken with a book as I was with A Voice in the Night. Get it before Mason achieves fame.
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