Book #56: A Killing in November by Simon Mason
A Killing in November by Simon Mason
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
So, this was a completely blind read, and at first I wasn't sure if I was going to get into it.
When the two main characters showed up, I started to enjoy it. So, Detective Ray Wilkins is paired with another detective, Ryan Wilkins, to investigate the murder of an unknown victim at an Oxford college. Ryan is by far the more interesting of the characters, since while Ray is very straitlaced, he is a complete loose cannon.
First off, Ryan is described as being "twenty-seven, but looking fifteen", has a scar on his face, which may well be explained in subsequent novels. He dresses very unlike a typical detective; in one scene he is described as "wearing his baseball cap slung backwards".
On the face of it, Ryan is an obnoxious character; he has been thrown out of one police job for some kind of assault incident, and seems to lack any social graces, so constantly insults and argues with witnesses. As I read the book, he started becoming more three-dimensional, being a single father (his wife is mentioned as having died, although the exact cause is not mentioned). He also spends some of the book defending his mother from his wife-beating father. I suspect that he will develop as a character in the subsequent books (I think there are three in total, and maybe there will be more).
The main plot is quite a simple one, as the characters investigate the initial murder, and there are a number of suspects, and of course plot twists. Ryan spends a lot of the book being disruptive, and I definitely want to keep going to see where they will take the character.
I really enjoyed the chalk-and-cheese pairing of Ryan and Ray, and hopefully both of them will be in the subsequent titles. I liked that, despite the fact that the book got very dark in places, there was some humour, mostly because of the characters having to improvise handcuffs on suspects, usually with shoelaces.
So, while I took a little while to get into this book, I am definitely keen to stick with this series.
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