A Killing in November
Ryan Wilkins grew up on a trailer park, a member of what many people would call the criminal classes. As a young Detective Inspector, he’s lost none of his disgust with privileged elites – or his objectionable manners. But he notices things; they stick to his eyes. His professional partner, DI Ray Wilkins, of affluent Nigerian-London heritage, is an impeccably groomed, smooth-talking graduate of Balliol College, Oxford. You wouldn’t think they would get on. They don’t.
But when a young woman is found strangled at Barnabas Hall, they’re forced to.
Rich Oxford is not Ryan’s natural habitat. St Barnabas’s irascible Provost does not appreciate his forceful line of questioning. But what was the dead woman doing in the Provost’s study? Is it just a coincidence that on the night of her murder the college was entertaining Sheik al-Medina, a Gulf state ruler linked to human-rights abuses in his own country and acts of atrocity in others?
As tensions rise, things aren’t going well. Ray is in despair. Ryan is in disciplinary measures. But their investigation gradually disentangles the links between a Syrian refugee lawyer now working in the college kitchens, a priceless copy of the Koran in the college collection and the identity of the dead woman.
A Killing in November introduces an unlikely duo from different sides of the tracks in Oxford in a deftly plotted murder story full of dangerous turns, troubled pasts and unconventional detective work.
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Simon Mason
Simon Mason is a writer of fiction. At first he wrote books for adults, then books for children, which grew up at roughly the same rate his own children grew up, and now he is back writing books for adults again. In 1990, The Great English Nude won the Betty Trask prize for best first novel. In 2002, The Quigleys, for seven-to-nine-year-olds, received a special commendation in the Branford Boase prize for best first children’s novel. Moon Pie (2011), for eight-to-twelve-year-olds, was shortlisted for The Guardian Children’s Fiction prize. More recently he has written three crime novels for young adults featuring the sixteen-year-old slacker genius Garvie Smith. Running Girl (2014) was shortlisted for the Costa prize for best children’s book, Kid Got Shot (2016) won the Crimefest prize for best YA crime novel, for which Hey, Sherlock! (2018) was also shortlisted. In addition to his fiction he has also written a work of nonfiction, The Rough Guide to Classic Novels(2007), for which he chose, read and wrote pieces on 200 classic novels from all world traditions, from the time of Don Quixote to the present day. He has pursued a parallel career as a publisher. From 2012 to 2018 he was Managing Director of David Fickling Books, where he worked with many wonderful writers, including Philip Pullman, whose book of essays, Daemon Voices(2016), he edited. Born in Sheffield, where his father was captain of Sheffield United, he has lived in Oxford now for thirty-five years.
DI Ryan Wilkins Mysteries
DI Ryan Wilkins Mysteries consists of five books. The current recommended reading order for the series is provided below.
