This is book two in a series. The plot is well depicted. It is gritty in places. It is fast paced and full of excitement. A good series so far

The Broken Afternoon by Simon Mason Narrated by Matt Addis is the second book in the DI Ryan Wilkins series. Sadly I haven't read the first book but don't let that put you off (I've just purchased it so I can catch up) I found this audio book / book brilliant from the start to the very last chapter, especially as this cover caught my eye. It was very dark and has a very disturbing theme around Pedophilia and the mental struggles of those afflicted the terrible results of their desires. Sadly in this case a loss of life. So, be aware when you are reading or listening to this book it was hard going.

When a four-year-old girl goes missing in plain sight outside her nursery in Oxford, which is a middle-class, affluent area, her mother is only a stones-throw away.

Ryan Wilkins, one of the youngest ever Detective Inspectors in the Thames Valley force, dishonourably discharged three months ago, watches his former partner DI Ray Wilkins deliver a press conference, confirming a lead.

Ray begins to delve deeper, unearthing an underground network of dark forces in the local area. But will he be able to get closer to the truth of the disappearance?

And will Ryan be able to stay away?

As I've said this book was excellent and I highly recommend it.

Really enjoyed this - will definitely be recommending and looking forward to the next one by this author!

Another detective story set in Oxford; but why not - it's a great location, and, unlike most the lead characters represent both Town and Gown. Two inspectors - with very similar names - but otherwise very different, investigate the disappearance of a young child.
One follows procedures, one doesn't - who is successful? It is an excellent page-turner, and the reader is very much on the side of the 'rule-breaker'. Apart from this I'm saying little about this book - I don't wish to write spoilers - except 'Read it'.

With thanks to NetGalley and riverrun for an ARC.

A masterly sequel to a promising debut. The strength of the characters and the tightness of the plot are only matched by the wonderful writing. A series to follow.

This is the second book featuring Ryan Wilkins and I couldn't wait to dive into it, as I simply adore his often blunt but down-to-earth approach to the situations he finds himself in and the people he has to deal with.

He's sharp, intelligent, humorous and the perfect accompaniment to his partner Ray. This is shaping up to be a cracking series, and I'm already looking forward to the next instalment.

Firstly, I would like to thank Net Galley for the opportunity to read this book.

This is the second book in the series featuring Ray and Ryan Wilkins. I hadn’t read the first one but it didn’t detract from my enjoyment of the story.

Ray Wilkins is a serving policeman and Ryan Wilkins is an ex colleague who is hoping to be re-instated into the police. A four year old girl goes missing and the book tells the story of the investigation into her disappearance, with both characters involved in this.

It is well written and the characterisations are very good. Well worth reading.

This is one of the best police procedural series, books that makes you visit part of Oxford which are very different from the dreamy spires city or the affluent neighbourhood.
The two Wilkins are on the opposite site of the social spectrum but there's something that connect them. Ryan Wilkins is my favorite, a very complex and damaged character.
The plot is dark, gritty, and twisty. It kept me turning pages and I thoroughly enjoyed this story.
I can't wait to read other stories by this author.
Highly recommended.
Many thanks to the publisher for this arc, all opinions are mine

It is a well written novel, with punchy dialogue that rings true, and the descriptive writing brings the scenes to life.
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

The Broken Afternoon by Simon Mason is a fast paced but disturbing crime novel that centres on a four year old , Poppy Clarke, who goes missing outside her nursery in Oxford. Ray Wilkins is the police detective in charge of the case and he gets help from his former partner, who was dishonourably discharged from the police force, and rather confusingly has the similar name of Ryan Wilkins.
Ray is struggling to find any leads on the case but gets help from Ryan who is now working as a security guard.
The subject matter is grim but it is an excellent well paced gritty crime novel.

A somewhat different slant on crime fiction in that we have two detectives with the same surname, one who is currently working as a security guard having been dismissed from the force. this is the second book in the series but the first I have read but this did not detract from my enjoyment. A four year old girl has been taken from outside a nursery school and DI Ray Wilkins is the man in charge of the investigation. At the same time his former partner Ryan Wilkins is unofficially investigating the hit and run dearth of a former schoolmate. Adding to the pressures on Ray Wilkins is the fact that his wife is going through a difficult pregnancy with twins. The story is well paced and kept me interested enough to read the book over two days.

Former police detective Ryan Wilkins is working as a night watchman when a former school mate appears in distress and then is killed minutes later. No-one is interested in the death except Ryan. At the same time a young girl is kidnapped from outside her nursery. Everyone is interested in this. The two cases bring Ryan and his former partner together and Ryan possibly has a chance of redemption.
I missed the first book in the series but this more than made up for it. There is a clever plot here and a nice juxtaposition between the two leads, so far so good for a police procedural. However some aspects grated. I like the fact that the black character is middle-class and educated whereas as the white character is 'trailer trash' but, after explaining that the service is a graduate one, it is then made clear that one character has little education. I also found it really annoying that the two had the same surname!

A tense account of everyone's worst nightmare - an abducted young child. Investigating, officially and unofficially, are two detectives, who are very different in background and approach. Lots of twists and turns make this hard to put down and impossible to predict.

This is a marvellous follow up to Simon Mason's Oxford DI Wilkins series with its 2 markedly different central protagonists in former DI Ryan Wilkin from a impoverished and troubled background, a man with a volatile temper, with his saving grace, a young son, and unable to follow orders that has had him thrown out of the force, and the black, well dressed, Oxford educated Ray Wilkins, married to Diane, experiencing a tough pregnancy expecting twins. Surprisingly, there is a connection between the 2 men, with Ryan now working as night watchman, a security guard, which is where he encounters a stressed out old schoolfriend, once a boxer, Mick Dick, who talks of making mistakes and is found dead in a ditch after a hit and run.

Ryan can't help but look into Mick's death, despite numerous obstacles and orders to let it go, with Superintendent Dave Wallace dangling the potential carrot of being reinstated, a drawn out process to ensure he can address his issues. Ray finds himself leading the biggest and most stressful high profile case in the country, 4 year old Poppy Clarke, bright and joyful, dressed as a pirate with black and red ribbons in her hair, is taken from her nursery school, whilst her bohemian, pink haired mother's attention is elsewhere. Rachel's bitter divorce and custody battle with her ex-husband, Sebastian, has the focus on him initially, but it soon becomes clear he is not responsible. As public horror and outrage grows, it is the unorthodox Ryan who makes the crucial breaks as the links between the cases emerge.

Mason has created 2 stellar central characters, and he provides a terrific and detailed sense of location in Oxford and its notorious inequalities, giving us a detailed glimpse of the city, contrasting its poorer parts, such as Rose Hill, with the likes of the wealthier Park Town and Boar's Hill. This is a gripping and suspenseful read, with plenty of twists, illustrating the difficulties Ryan has in changing his underlying personality, whilst highlighting it is this essence of him that makes him able to succeed where others fail. He cannot help being who he is, even though it threatens to prevent him being reinstated, whilst Ray finds himself unable to be supportive to a Diane that needs him, his marriage in trouble. This is shaping up to be an unusual and unmissable series, and I am eagerly looking forward to the next book. Many thanks to the publisher for an ARC.

This book opens soon in time after the conclusion of the first book in this crime thriller series, the brilliant A Killing in November. Set in Oxford, England, we are re-introduced to the main characters, DI Ryan Wilkins and DI Ray Wilkins! Much of the appeal of the first book centred on the ambivalent relationship between the two detectives, shaped to some extent by the class difference between them, their contrasting attitudes to rules and procedures, and in particular Ryan’s struggles with authority and his own capacity for self-control. So The Broken Afternoon is potentially the difficult second novel in the series, as readers are already familiar with these contrasting and compelling characters, written with considerable nuance and complexity by Mason. But here the characters are mostly working separately, so we get less humour due to less interaction and dialogue. The narrative works best when they are together, helping and annoying each other, driven by the same compulsion to find the killer. This book perhaps emphasises the personal life of middle-class Ray Wilkins a little more than the other Wilkins, a reversal of the first book, and his story is not as gripping as the difficult path that Ryan has followed. Both men have interactions with their fathers, but it is the depiction of Ryan’s relationship with his father that again heightens the emotions for the reader.

There is good pacing, and suspense, and Mason paints the interior lives of several characters as they reflect on their histories, fates and foibles.

I really enjoyed the book, but not quite as much as the first one; this may be down to the sheer freshness of that first book, and also perhaps the replaying of familiar patterns.

With thanks to NetGalley and Quercus Books for a copy of this book.

Perhaps I am developing the famous 'gut feeling ' that leads a lot of police officers to the guilty but I had figured out who took Poppy very early on; and I had only the exact same information as ex DI Ryan Wilkins.
The how took a little longer. As for the motive? There can never be one for a crime this heinous.
If you don't notice what I did the book is swimming with red herring that will keep you page turning to the end.

On a sunny afternoon, Poppy Clarke, aged four, was laughing outside her Nursery while her mother talked to her teacher. Minutes later she had disappeared. DI Ray Wilkins, Nigerian by birth, affluent background, Oxford degree, rising star of Oxford’s St Aldates police station is assigned to the case as SIO. Poppy’s father can’t be traced and has a house in France, so parental abduction is the first line of enquiry – and the first wrong idea. That night, as on all recent nights, former DI Ryan Wilkins, white, trailer trash, school of life, dishonourably discharged from the same police station for uncontrollable anger issues, is currently a security guard. Sitting brooding in his little shed, a movement in the compound outside catches his eye. Moments later he catches Mick Dick, ex-con, ex-boxer, slow thinker, easily led. Ryan knows him, because they were both at the same school in the slummier end of Oxford. Usually a calm and sociable guy, Mick, tonight, is highly agitated, even panicked. Ryan lets him go and he runs off into the night – only to die after colliding with a speeding car. Meanwhile, back at the station, Superintendent Wallace is eying his diversity requirement and thinking that Ryan, with his background, could be reinstated – if he can only learn to manage his anger and get rid of his chip. Ray and his team continue the slow methodical investigation into Poppy’s disappearance, while Ryan starts an unconventional, and technically illegal, investigation into Mick’s death, and Wallace starts sorting out the reinstatement process by trying to get Ryan become less of a loose cannon. Inevitably these three activities merge and divide as twists accrue and suspects shift, before everything is resolved, mostly satisfactorily.
This is the second in a series featuring the contrasting DIs Wilkins, but works perfectly as a standalone. The writing is sharp and witty, the characters are solid and the action, especially the contrasting of the frustratingly meticulous Ray and the gung-ho and intuitive Ryan. There is a lot of children related background (Ray’s wife is six months pregnant with twins, Ryan is a single father with a four-year-old son) which initially feels excessive but gradually provides a vehicle for relevant information. The swings and roundabouts of the plot work well in both making the story more interesting and in leading the reader on the path devised by the author. I did think I’d solved the puzzle about half-way through but wasn’t convinced until the reveal. All in all, this is a brilliant book and the series will, I hope, continue at this high level.
I would like to thank NetGalley, the publishers and the author for providing me with a draft proof copy for the purpose of this review.

After initially being confused by the similar names of the two main characters this became a thoroughly interesting tale of a horrific child abduction and murder. The DI at the head of the investigation is portrayed as the ideal vision of a policeman whilst his ex colleague dismissed from the force several months earlier is anything but. A new Superintendent is not impressed by either of them and the investigation seems to be going nowhere whilst the DI’s home life is in disarray as his pregnant with twins wife is being ignored in favour of the case. It all gradually seems to become clearer assisted by the disgraced officer’s illegal efforts in the background. An arrest is eventually made but there’s still time for a surprise twist in this good entertaining yarn.

Twelve months after the first DI Ryan Wilkins Mystery comes this second book, The Broken Afternoon by Simon Mason. It’s a British police procedural set in Oxford, featuring two contrasting detectives named Wilkins - Ryan (a troubled upbringing) and Ray (African immigrant parents and university educated). Three months on from their previous case, a four-year-old child goes missing and DI Ray Wilkins is in charge of the investigation. Meantime, Ryan is working as a security guard on a night shift, given his dishonourable discharge from the police force. A disturbance at the factory brings Ryan into contact with a former school friend, who is later discovered to have been killed in a hit-and-run. So as the two former colleagues are busy with their own particular crime cases, their personal lives both suffer. Another delightful police procedural with a peculiar crime duo that is a four and a half stars read rating. With thanks to Quercus Books and the author, for an uncorrected advanced review copy for review purposes. As always, the opinions herein are totally my own and freely given.

Poppy is four when she disappears outside her nursery school yards from her mother.
DI Ray Wilkins is in charge of finding her and is thrown into a world of paedophiles and criminals.
His ex partner, who had been dishonourably discharged from duty, is hoping for re-instatement. He is looking for answers for a hit and run accident but could the cases be connected and could he help Ray with his enquiry?