The Dangerous Stranger is Simon Mason’s latest instalment in the Detective Inspector (DI) Wilkins series, which are set in Oxford.
Mr Mason is following Colin Dexter, whose crime novels inspired successful ITV dramas, including Inspector Morse, Lewis, and Endeavour, which concluded in 2023.
READ MORE: Latest Oxford novel series is like Morse for 2020s
Mr Mason’s novels feature a double act – Oxford-educated DI Ray Wilkins and his unruly partner DI Ryan Wilkins – who is no relation.
In The Dangerous Stranger, rioters outside a hotel full of asylum seekers set who they believe is a young refugee on fire – not something that has ever occurred in real life.
The plot summary says: “The city – the country – convulses in shock; their dreaming spires now juxtaposed with burning police vehicles, studious academics shown side by side with the violent mob. Is this who we are now?
“It’s international news of the very worst kind, and the chief constable demands immediate and exemplary action in bringing the perpetrators to justice.
“The detectives leading the investigation fill him with misgivings, however: DIs Ryan and Ray Wilkins (no relation), Thames Valley’s detective pantomime horse, one Oxford-educated, the other Oxford-trailer park.”
The summary adds: “Deploying a range of investigative skills, some standard, some unconventional and some frankly nuts, the Wilkinses do what they do: results with chaos.
“But when they discover that the victim was not an asylum seeker after all, or even a resident of the hotel, the whole investigation kicks into a completely different configuration.”
Oxford’s Dreaming Spires (Image: Oxford Mail)
The new crime thriller follows A Voice In The Night, Lost And Never Found, The Broken Afternoon, and A Killing In November.
The Times has described the series as ‘Inspector Morse for the 2020s’ and the novels have also won praise from spy novelist Mick Herron, who is based in Oxford and has written a successful series of novels about a team of MI5 agents who have fallen on hard times.
Mick Herron has praised the novel series based in Oxford
Scottish crime writer Val McDermid, a graduate of St Hilda’s College in Oxford, said earlier: “Move over Morse. Simon Mason’s latest crime novels confound all our expectations.”
Mr Mason has pursued parallel careers as a publisher and an author, whose young adult crime novels Running Girl, Kid Got Shot and Hey, Sherlock! feature the 16-year-old slacker genius Garvie Smith.
Simon Mason (Image: Quercus Books)
The author said last year he has not read Colin Dexter’s novels or watched episodes of Morse.
He made a decision not to read the novels so his own fiction would not be influenced by it.
Father-of-two Mr Mason has lived in the city for about 40 years.
The Dangerous Stranger will be published by Quercus Books on March 12, price £16.99.