Lost and Never Found

A TIMES TOP TEN CRIME AND MYSTERY BOOK FOR 2024

'Ryan and Ray go from strength to strength, and this, their third outing, is the best yet. Simon Mason has created crime fiction's most entertaining double act in decades' Mick Herron

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 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.