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He is too brash, too uncontrollable for me to believe that he ever managed to graduate from police college, let alone made it to DI by age 27. Discretion is a venerable Oxford tradition, so too refinement and good manners; it is rare for a college to have anything so crude as a sign with its name on outside its gates. He splits his time between writing at home and a part-time editorial position with David Fickling Books, an imprint of Random House and publisher of his 2011 children's novel, Moon Pie. But I did find a lot of the tropes pretty lazy (posh guy eating Waitrose meals, poor guy wearing trackies and being casually bigoted) and while I get that the novel was going for the edgy detective as its USP, I found the Ryan character to verge too far towards the offensive, implausible and unlikeable. He is teamed in an inspired piece of writing with Ray, the other Wilkins, who is Oxford educated, a boxing blue and completely the opposite of Ryan.
This is a terrific crime nov el, with a startlingly original protagonist we're going to see a lot more of.
The two sides of Oxford are well portrayed, there is some pretty good characterisation and Ryan’s relationship with his 2-year-old son is especially well painted, I think.
Om inte annat för att jag gav Anne Holt en trea häromsistens - det här är bättre läsning, även om det tar emot att säga som gammalt Holt-fan). I don't read many crime novels, but I was in Oxford and it was November, so I thought it would be the best moment to read it. This town and gown divide is echoed in the two lead detectives, the 30 year old DI Ray Wilkins, a well dressed Balliol College man, from a wealthy Nigerian background, a high flyer, and the more troubled 27 year old DI Ryan Wilkins, who despises the world of privilege, growing up in a Oxford trailer park, a single dad with an adorable young son, Ryan. I loved that characters and the contrasts between quicksilver, slightly mad Ryan in his trackies and black, smartly dressed, well-behaved Raymond.The highlight for me was the developing relationship between Ray and Ryan as they worked the case that seemed impossible initially. The first novel in a promising new police series set in Oxford that explores the working relationship between a chalk-and-cheese detective duo.
Ryan has a genuinely warm and moving relationship with his young son and a tendency to think creatively, which is let down by his inability to control his mouth or his anger.You can see Ryan hanging around town in his trackie bottoms and Loop jacket and plaid baseball cap, the epitome of the chav. I really enjoyed this book, the back stories, the characters and their relationships, the investigation and for once this book lived up to all the positive critiques it has received. I was done as I really couldn’t take to him but something made me just carry On a little longer and In doing so I’m very glad I did as I’ve read one of my favourite books this year and Ryan became a character I loved.
The plot kept me interested (it involves not only murder, but also the theft of a rare, valuable book) and I laughed out loud a number of times. That such a character could have made it to DI is a nonsense, from which the plot never really recovers.Suffice it to say that I found the idea of the double detective excellent and entertaining, Stereotypical characters, certain lack of verisimilitude at times, but fleshed out with some individuality and a bit of complexity. There are riots in the Leys (a child has been killed by the police) whilst in Barnabas College, the Provost is trying to lure an Arab sheik to finance a project. An unusual crime thriller set in Oxford featuring two policemen, both with the surname Wilkins, Ryan and Ray.
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