Ali Karim was a Board Member of Bouchercon [The World Crime & Mystery Convention] and co-chaired programming for Bouchercon Raleigh, North Carolina in 2015. He is Assistant Editor of Shots eZine, British correspondent for The Rap Sheet and writes and reviews for many US magazines & Ezines.
The latest Oxford-based police procedural series is as prescient as it is international with the [unrelated] Detectives Ryan and Ray Wilkins investigating what appears to be a racially motivated murder. We have Jallo a teenage West African Asylum seeker fleeing an immigrant camp in Calais only to be set alight outside a budget hotel in Oxford by Far Right Extremists.
The international dimension arrives from Paris in the shape of Inspector Boucher. A young French National, Sami Zemmour [originally from Algeria] and a wealthy Tech-Bro’ has gone missing. The trail leads to Oxford.
Detective Ryan Wilkins, shell-suited and originally from a poor council estate is struggling mentally. He’s tolerated by the Oxfordshire constabulary despite insubordination and a lack of ‘awareness’, because he gets results. Partnered with fellow Detective Ray Wilkins [no relation], who comes from the opposite end-of-the-street [a middle-class background] – these two Detectives make for an odd-couple, but one that their Superintendent [‘the Super’] supports. Though neither the ‘Super’ nor the Wilkins’ duo are supported by the Chief Constable which adds political hurdles for the international investigation that striates this novel.
What makes The Dangerous Stranger so addictively readable is the vividly delineated characters, and despite it being the fifth in the series, the narrative unspools like a standalone thriller.
Hidden in the shadows are the characters ‘Dogs’ and the ‘Headhunter’ [who give this novel its title, and motif]. The ‘Headhunter’ appears to be working in-concert with ‘Dogs’ who is an old-school gangster from South-East London. Unlike the ‘Headhunter’ he shares his virulent racism openly like the younger [ex-Military] Bomb maker Sean Nithercott who lives ‘off-grid’ planning racist violence.
Aiding our Detectives are the younger DC William Haber and Data Analytics officer Ms Nadim Khan. Hindering our Detectives are the problems in their personal lives – emotional [and family] baggage that at times derails the investigation.
The Oxford backdrop provides an additional layer of depth; with the cosmopolitan Cowley Road, with its Student bed-sits and Mini-Marts, such as Yemi Kosoko’s shop stocking West-African foods - to the council estates of Wolvercote, to academia with semi-retired Professor Nicolas Kinghorn and his knowledge of the Fulani tribe of West Africa.
The investigation into the death of the young West-African asylum-seeker Jallo, and the missing French-Moroccan Sami Zemmour takes several serves around the streets of Oxford. Hostility towards foreigners becomes murderous and perhaps hidden beneath underworld secrets that stretch between London and Paris.
Despite the dangers and horrors that the Detectives have to traverse, there is a curious layer of black-humour that makes the narrative sparkle and pages turn with impatience - because little is what it seems. Nothing can be taken at face value, not even racial [or geographical] identity within the structures of English society.
The conclusion provides satisfaction, however one does clamour for another instalment in this engagingly thought-provoking police-procedural series.
