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Somehow, I missed this first time round, but reviewed books two and three in this excellent series but Simon Mason. In Ryan Wilkins and Ray Wilkins we met one a rather unusual cop partnership. Ryan is something of a chav, scruffily dressed and with a huge chip on his shoulder. He is, however, very astute. Equally clever, but much more an establishment man, despite his ethnic origin, is black officer Ray. He is a family man, suave and well spoken, and clearly destined for higher things. Their beat is Oxford.

The contrast between the Oxford educated Ray and Ryan, graduate of a seedy South Oxford caravan site (trailer park for American readers) couldn’t be greater. Simon Mason chooses a superb location for their first professional engagement. Barnabus College is where a young woman has been found strangled in the rooms of the college Provost. Ray is all diplomacy and respect, while Ryan, much the more observant, needles the well-to-do members of the college by refusing to grovel at the altar of their social and academic status. It is eventually confirmed that the dead is Syrian, from a wealth family, but due to the political situation, has been forced to earn a living as a porn model. Working as a domestic servant in the college is Ameena Najib, also from Syria, but from a very different background. She is a devout and militant Muslim, and when she is found dead, also strangled, the mystery deepens.

In the background to this murder investigation is civil unrest in the Oxford district of Blackbird Leys. A child has died after being hit by a police car, and protests are violent and bloody. The Leys is a real place, and is a superb example of urban planners concocting idyllic rural names for dire housing estates. I was at Teacher Training College nearby and, trust me, if it was announced the Leys was where you were sent for Teaching Practice, you were not happy.

Simon Mason lets us know, in one of the most scary scenes in the book, why Ryan is so disturbed. Ryan’s wife Michelle died of a drug overdose, leaving him to bring up their little son, also called Ryan. When Ryan senior fails to collect the lad from nursery, the staff phoned one of the contact numbers – that of the little boy’s grandparents. Bad call. They are a disaster. Grandma is, literally, bruised and battered by her feral husband, and when Ryan and Ray break into the shabby caravan on the grim site in South Oxford to rescue the child, all hell breaks loose.

Ryan’s propensity for violence, his unwillingness to ‘play the game’, and his chaotic personal life make it inevitable that he is dismissed from the force. However, his sharp insight into what makes people tick combined with his intuition, enable him to solve the mystery. Ray, despite his initial horror at Ryan’s manner and attitude, keeps the phone line open with his former colleague, and the Barnabus killer is brought to justice.

This is a wonderful read, and I finished it in just a few sessions. My only quibble is that Ryan Wilkins is such an outrageously out-of-kilter character, dressed in his trackies, trainers and baseball cap (back to front, naturally) that it is hard to imagine him making senior rank in the modern police force, which is notorious for signing up to all the latest DEI fads, and renowned for its many acts that seem woker than woke. Simon Mason has created a brilliant – and unique – member of the Cri-Fi Detective Inspector union, and any crime enthusiast who doesn’t enjoy this needs to collect their hat and make for the nearest exit. A Killing In November is published by Riverrun, and is available now.