Lost and Never Found

DI Wilkins, Book 3

By: Simon Mason

Narrated by: Matt Addis

Lost and Never Found is a novel that shows Simon Mason taking his Oxford crime series to a new level of accomplishment.

Oxford, city of rich and poor, where the homeless camp out in the shadows of the gorgeous buildings and monuments. A city of lost things - and buried crimes.

At three o'clock in the morning, Emergency 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 (Black female Deputy Chief Constable from the wrong side of the tracks) takes a shine to Ray - and takes against Ryan - things are only going to get even messier.

(P) 2024 Quercus Editions Limited©2024 Simon Mason

Critic reviews

As in all fine novels, it is the voice that grips you: ironic, eloquent, but compassionate. (Nicholas Clee)

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. (M W Craven)

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. (Stephen Fry)