Lost and Never Found
On sale
26th September 2024
Price: £9.99
‘Simon Mason has created crime fiction’s most entertaining double act in decades’ Mick Herron
‘As great a contribution to the noble British genre of detective fiction as any writer for decades‘ Stephen Fry
Oxford. A city of lost things – and buried crimes.
At three o’clock in the morning, Emergency Services receives a call. ‘This is Zara Fanshawe. Always lost and never found.’ An hour later, the wayward celebrity’s Rolls Royce Phantom is found abandoned in dingy Becket Street. The paparazzi go wild.
For some reason, news of Zara’s disappearance prompts homeless woman Lena Wójcik to search the camps, nervously, for the bad-tempered vagrant known as ‘Waitrose’, a familiar sight in Oxford pushing his trolley of possessions. But he’s nowhere to be found either.
Who will lead the investigation and cope with the media frenzy? Suave, prize-winning, Oxford-educated DI Ray Wilkins is passed over in favour of his partner, gobby, trailer-park educated DI Ryan Wilkins (no relation). You wouldn’t think Ray would be happy. He isn’t. You wouldn’t think Ryan would be any good at national press presentations. He isn’t.
And when legendary cop Chester Lynch takes a shine to Ray – and takes against Ryan – things are only going to get even messier.
What readers are saying about Lost and Never Found
5* An engaging detective double act
5* Best in the series so far
5* Set in present day Oxford, it is Morse times two
‘As great a contribution to the noble British genre of detective fiction as any writer for decades‘ Stephen Fry
Oxford. A city of lost things – and buried crimes.
At three o’clock in the morning, Emergency Services receives a call. ‘This is Zara Fanshawe. Always lost and never found.’ An hour later, the wayward celebrity’s Rolls Royce Phantom is found abandoned in dingy Becket Street. The paparazzi go wild.
For some reason, news of Zara’s disappearance prompts homeless woman Lena Wójcik to search the camps, nervously, for the bad-tempered vagrant known as ‘Waitrose’, a familiar sight in Oxford pushing his trolley of possessions. But he’s nowhere to be found either.
Who will lead the investigation and cope with the media frenzy? Suave, prize-winning, Oxford-educated DI Ray Wilkins is passed over in favour of his partner, gobby, trailer-park educated DI Ryan Wilkins (no relation). You wouldn’t think Ray would be happy. He isn’t. You wouldn’t think Ryan would be any good at national press presentations. He isn’t.
And when legendary cop Chester Lynch takes a shine to Ray – and takes against Ryan – things are only going to get even messier.
What readers are saying about Lost and Never Found
5* An engaging detective double act
5* Best in the series so far
5* Set in present day Oxford, it is Morse times two
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Reviews
As in all fine novels, it is the voice that grips you: ironic, eloquent, but compassionate.
Better than Morse in its bite, pace, urgency and characterisation.
Mason has created a gripping case while making his cops so human they leap off the pages.
Superb
Class conflict and police corruption are at the heart of the third novel in this superb series.
Class conflicts and police corruption are at the heart of the third novel in this superb series.
The satisfyingly knotted plot is underpinned by acute psychology
An original and unexpectedly attractive character
My favourite UK series.
Simon Mason's Ray Wilkins crime novels are my latest addiction. I wait impatiently for each one. What are the triple pillars of any great story? Character, Plot and Language. In the twin heroes of his novels (both called Wilkins and so unalike: they somehow create together one immortal police detective) he has created characters for the ages. His plots race thrillingly around an Oxford you never knew existed. His language though ... without exhibiting a trace of "writerly" self-consciousness, he is capable of phrase-making and description of the very highest quality. Those three perfect pillars support truly memorable crime novels, as great a contribution to the noble British genre of detective fiction as any writer for decades.
