A Killing in November: The Sunday Times Crime Book of the Month (DI Wilkins Mysteries)

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A Killing in November is an Oxford-set crime series of surprising twists, troubled pasts and a dynamic duo who are brought together by a mysterious murder investigation. The provost has friends in high places and complains loudly to them, so within a matter of hours Raymond – suave, sophisticated and considered a safe pair of hands – has taken over the murder investigation, with Ryan demoted to deputy. The men are chalk and cheese. Raymond goes by the book, one step at a time, and Ryan, for all his aggression and rudeness is an instinctive policeman, capable of making inspired jumps of logic. Thank you to @ReadingAgency and @Riverrun_Books for providing free copies of the book for Macclesfield Library Reading Group to read and review. Here are the thoughts of our members –

Oxford-set detective odd couple book, both called Detective Inspector R. Wilkins. Raymond is a posh Nigerian-Brit with Oxford pedigree, Ryan is a white underclass foul-mouthed chav brought up in an Oxford trailer park by an alcoholic (Oxford area has some of the worst income inequality in the UK). It is not entirely filled in how Ryan became a DI with his amazingly bad attitude and refusal to adapt his clothing or manner or anything else, though he's a kind of crime solving savant. He's definitely the centre of the books and it's notable that the sheer force of classism directed against him is shown here as more powerful than wealthy privileged Raymond's experience of racism, from which class privilege provides some kind of shield. The plot worked for me. Again - what do you expect from this genre? Everything simple, straightforward and believable? Not me. The first book in an Oxford-set crime series of surprising twists, troubled pasts and a dynamic duo who are brought together by a mysterious murder investigation. Rich Oxford is not Ryan's natural habitat. St Barnabas's irascible Provost does not appreciate his forceful line of questioning. But what was the dead woman doing in the Provost's study? Is it just a coincidence that on the night of her murder the college was entertaining Sheik al-Medina, a Gulf state ruler linked to human-rights abuses in his own country and acts of atrocity in others?Rich Oxford is not Ryan's natural habitat. St Barnabas' irascible Provost does not appreciate his forceful line of questioning. But what was the dead woman doing in the Provost's study? Is it just a coincidence that on the night of her murder the college was entertaining Sheik al-Medina, a Gulf state ruler linked to human-rights abuses in his own country and acts of atrocity in others?

As you might have noted, both detectives have the same surname. which is how a mistake is made at the beginning when it is Ryan who is called to the scene of a murder at Barnabas College, the victim a woman who has been strangled in the Provost's study. There had been a dinner in the honour of the controversial billionaire Sheik al-Medina, with his history of human rights abuses at home and atrocities in other countries. The anxious Provost had been hoping to elicit funding for the new Institute for Peace Studies, only to be disappointed in what turned out to be a disastrous evening. As you might imagine, Ray and Ryan have little in common, chalk and cheese, and initially struggle to get on, but slowly they begin to form a bond, Ryan might well be a wild card, but he notices details and is able to make breaks in a complex and intriguing case, where it takes some time to identify the murdered woman, and which involves a valuable stolen Koran, and another death.Fun characters although Ryan gets a lot more attention and good lines than Raymond which is regrettable on multiple levels, including technically as Raymond is an interesting character. The plot is engaging though had a few holes and improbabilities, not least the idea that a British police force would be remotely bothered that one of its officers was violent, xenophobic or misogynist.