Simon Mason

The writer discusses his fifth detective novel, and tells how he has been inspired by Georges Simenon

- With MATT NIXSON

Nothing beats an odd couple when it comes to detective films, and it can prove just as entertaining in fiction.

There's Lisbeth Salander and Mikael Blomkvist in Stieg Larsson's Girl With The Dragon Tattoo series; Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson; and archeologist Ruth Galloway and DCI Harry Nelson in Elly Griffiths' Norfolk-set procedurals to name just a few.

But Simon Mason might have pipped them all with the most brilliant pairing of partners yet - DIs Ryan Wilkins and Ray Wilkins - in Mason's fifth book, The Dangerous Stranger. The surname-sharing pair are described as Thames Valley Police's “pantomime horse” - one (Ray) Oxford-educated, the other (Ryan) from an Oxford trailer park - and while the books might be set in the City of Dreaming Spires, Inspector Morse they ain't.

But with fans including the likes of Stephen Fry, Val McDermid and Mick Herron - who describes Wilkins and Wilkins as “crime fiction’s most entertaining double act in decades”, Mason, 64, is onto a winner.

"Ryan is what we might call a chav,” explains Mason, a former publisher of literary fiction and writer of young adult books. “You see him in the street, baggy tracky bottoms, shellsuit jacket, plaid baseball cap, big bling and can of energy drink on the go and you might assume he's a member of the criminal classes. You think he's probably got a big dog on a chain, three or four kids by three or four different women and has never done a day's work.