Being posh and having good manners is useful. So is being pushy and having few manners, in this second outing for Simon Mason’s two detectives, the two R Wilkinses. Ray has the manners and Ryan is, well, more down to earth. Both are lovely, in their own way. Both are also quite useless in other ways, which is why cooperation is good.
The Broken Afternoon is about that thing I believe I like the least in crime fiction; an abducted small child, possibly murdered. And it features not only the first missing child, but there are several more small children, making you fear the worst at all times. But Simon handles it well, clearly caring a bit about the readers’ peace of mind too.
If you read A Killing in November, the first 2x DI R Wilkins, you will know that it didn’t end so well for one of them. So alongside the fear of dead children you wonder whether the now former DI R Wilkins has a future with the police, or if it is down to the two Rs working less side by side this time. There are obviously advantages to not being so bound by the official rule book.
The boss is new, and not terribly friendly. Ray is stressed not only with work, but his wife is pregnant with twins. The other boss is not so nice, either, and Ryan struggles with the timing of his childcare. But still there is the need to find the bad guy, and we have plenty of suspects, each one as plausible as the next one.
I’m wanting book three now, but seeing as this one is just out, there might be a slight delay to services.
The Occasional Bookwitch 