The Dangerous Stranger

DI Wilkins, Book 5

By: Simon Mason

Narrated by: Matt Addis

'This is absolutely first class' Stephen Fry
'Simon Mason has created crime fiction's most entertaining double act in decades' Mick Herron
'Move over Morse' Val McDermid
'My favourite UK series' M W Craven

On a warm and pleasant evening in Oxford, gentle city of poets and scholars, rioters outside a hotel full of asylum seekers set a young refugee on fire. The city - the country - convulses in shock. Is this who we are? 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. He doesn't understand why they work together. 'Do they even get on?' 'Somehow that doesn't seem necessary,' their Superintendent replies.

Who burned the boy alive? Was it a far-right extremist? Was it an ordinary person who had simply gone along to watch and got caught up in the emotion? Could it even be one of the children who were there? 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.


READERS ARE LOVING RYAN AND RAY:

'Loved it, what a wonderful read' ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
'Really, really enjoyed and was sorry to finish it' ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
'Have really enjoyed the whole series' ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
'If you like Slow Horses, either the books or the Apple series, this book is for you' ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
'Set in present day Oxford, England, it is Morse times two' ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
'Can't put these books down' ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
'A real un-putdownable page turner . . . A tremendous read' ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐©2026 Simon Mason

Critic reviews

A terrific writer (Peter May)

An electrifying read replete with feints and false leads.

Excellent . . . DI Ryan Wilkins, the unlikely Sherlock in a shell suit, is an enduringly brilliant creation

One of the highlights of the genre . . . impressive as well as highly entertaining, and has real depths of emotion

What makes The Dangerous Stranger so addictively readable is the vividly delineated characters, and despite it being the fifth in the series, the narrative unspools like a standalone thriller . . . there is a curious layer of black-humour that makes the narrative sparkle and pages turn with impatience - because little is what it seems

Startling . . . Mason is an exceptional storyteller, basing ingenious plots on events that mirror life

Mason is becoming a master of the modern British police procedural and his double act is one for the connoisseurs

Brilliantly complex characters and plot laden with twists and turns