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DEEP DECEPTION. TWISTED FATE.

‘As great a contribution to the noble British genre of detective fiction as any writer for decades’ Stephen Fry
A Daily Express Book of the Year 2025

Thames Valley has a new Superintendent – DCS Wainwright – young, charismatic and ruthless, charged with pushing through big reforms. Her in-tray is full of problems – and at the top of the pile is the problem of Wilkins and Wilkins.

Trailer park boy DI Ryan Wilkins, interesting looking in baggy trackies and over-large lime-green puffa. In his personnel file is a handwritten note scribbled by the outgoing Super: ‘Do not, repeat not, give him responsibility.’ And posh boy DI Ray Wilkins, improbably handsome in navy blazer and tan chinos: ‘Thinks too highly of himself. More experience needed at the wet end.’ Their previous investigations – though somehow successful – were models of disorder and dysfunction. The new Super needs to take action.

There’s been a shocking murder in the heart of Oxford, the stabbing of a security guard during an attempted armed robbery. Meanwhile, an elderly professor of linguistics goes missing from his home in cosy Iffley Village.

The high-profile murder investigation can be safely handled by reliable detective DI Hare. The entry-level enquiry into the wandering academic can be given to the problem duo, with instructions to keep it simple. But when the body of the professor is found, still dressed in his pyjamas and dripping wet, spreadeagled on a hotel lawn miles from home, things get a little unexpected for the Wilkinses. Will Ray keep on top of the brief? Will Ryan keep it together?

PRAISE FOR SIMON MASON

‘Terrific’ Mick Herron

‘This has a TV series written all over it’ Daily Mail