A Killing in November: A Razor-Sharp Oxford Mystery -- Simon Mason, Paperback

SHORTLISTED FOR THE CWA GOLD DAGGER 2023

'As great a contribution to the noble British genre of detective fiction as any writer for decades' Stephen Fry
'This moody, atmospheric novel is full of surprises' Sunday Times (Crime Book of the Month)

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. 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?

As tensions rise, things aren't going well. Ray is in despair. Ryan is in disciplinary measures.

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.

READ THE NEXT DI RYAN WILKINS MYSTERY, THE BROKEN AFTERNOON NOW!

Author: Simon Mason
Publisher: Quercus Publishing
Published: 09/02/2025
Pages: 416
Binding Type: Paperback
ISBN: 9781529438413

About the Author

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.

A Killing in November is the first book in the DI Ryan Wilkins Mysteries which Stephen Fry has said is 'as great a contribution to the noble British genre of detective fiction as any writer for decades'.