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SIMON MASON has pursued parallel careers as a publisher and an author, whose YA crime novels Running Girl, Kid Got Shot and Hey, Sherlock! feature the sixteen-year-old slacker genius Garvie Smith. A former Managing Director of David Fickling Books, where he worked with many wonderful writers, including Philip Pullman, he has also taught at Oxford Brookes University and has been a Royal Literary Fund Fellow at Exeter College, Oxford. Lost and Never Found is the third book in the DI Ryan Wilkins Mysteries. The first book, A Killing in November, received widespread critical acclaim and was shortlisted for the CWA Gold Dagger. The Second book, The Broken Afternoon, was a Times Audio Book of the Week and a Sunday Times Crime Book of the Month.
This is a terrific crime novel, with a startlingly original protagonist we're going to see a lot more of. Oxford's mean streets just got meaner. * Mick Herron * This moody, atmospheric novel is full of surprises, with subplots about sexual harassment and the impact of the Syrian civil war. * Sunday Times (Crime Book of the Month) * It's a brave writer who sets a new crime series in Inspector Morse's Oxford but Mason has come up trumps with chalk-and-cheese cops DI Ryan Wilkins and DI Ray Wilkins...It's well plotted and very funny. ***** * The Sun * The first novel in a promising new police series set in Oxford that explores the working relationship between a chalk-and-cheese detective duo. * Sunday Times Crime Club (Star Pick) * This has a TV series written all over it. * Daily Mail * Simon Mason has reformulated Inspector Morse for the 2020s. This angelic two-year-old son, Ryan Jr (""Is it hard being a daddy?""), are superb and his relationship with Ray, a snob with a heart of gold beneath the sharp suit, shows huge potential. The good news is they'll be back. * Mark Sanderson, Times (Best New Crime Fiction for Jan 2022) * The story has modern relevance, ingenious plotting, vivid characterisation, a touching father-son relationship and impressively accurate city geography. * The Times (Audiobook of the Week) * [T]his is a very individual piece of work, with a satisfying plot involving Syrian refugees, snobbish dons and nimble interaction between the ill-assorted protagonists. There is real craftsmanship at work here. * Financial Times * Ryan Wilkins is about as far removed from George Smiley as a protagonist can be, he may in time become as memorable. He's an extraordinary creation, and demonstrates that even in the most suspenseful thrillers, character is king * The Spectator * Mason avoids the obvious tropes, and rather movingly focuses on Ryan's relationship with his young son. Well plotted, too. It's the first in a series: start now and avoid the rush. * Guardian (Best Holiday Reads) * Mason has reformulated Inspector Morse for the 2020s * The Times (Best Books For Summer) * Mason has reformulated Inspector Morse for the 2020s. The murder mystery is worthy of Colin Dexter but the result is less bookish and more bolshie * The Times (Best Crime Book of 2022) * This moody, atmospheric novel is full of surprises. * Sunday Times (Crime Book of the Year) * My favourite crime novel of the year was Simon Mason's A Killing in November . . . it was enhanced by deft prose and the detective duo of social misfit Ryan Wilkins and the Balliol-educated Ray Wilkins. * BookBrunch * Mismatched cops probe a college murder in this funny and well-plotted debut * Sun Scotland (Book of the Year) * A real page-turner . . . the relationship between the two detectives is beautifully developed, and it's brilliantly plotted and very funny * Wiltshire Life *
