Published 11th September 2024 by riverrun.
From the cover of the book:
Bournemouth 2008, the height of the financial crash. Don Bayliss, a timid and well-mannered accountant, vanishes after leaving his office before a scheduled meeting. His wife is both perplexed and distraught. His clothes are found discarded at the mouth of Poole Harbour.After seven years of searching with no firm leads, the investigation is closed, and Don is presumed dead.
Until, sorting through his possessions, his wife finds a garish business card of one Dwight Fricker and decides it must be of some importance. Now more than eight years after his disappearance Dorset Police call in the Finder and the cold case is reopened.
The Finder begins with the last sightings of Don on the day he went missing, hearing how he seemed in a hurry, somewhat distracted? He unearths a string of overlooked clues that lead him to face the unlikely friendships that Don had made, the somewhat overbearing nature of Mrs Bayliss, the secrets that haunted him in his home life and the mistakes that led to him being investigated at work.
The Case of the Lonely Accountant is a dark and rich mystery that centres upon one lonely man and reveals the distance between those who are missing and those who are lost.
***********
In 2008, Don Bayliss, Chief Accounting Officer and Vice President of a prestigious asset management company in Bournemouth, went missing during the madness of the financial crash. His clothes were found folded in a neat pile on the quayside at Poole Harbour, and it was assumed that he had committed suicide. His body was never recovered.
Eight years later, Don's wife is sorting through his belongings and discovers a business card she does not recognise. Thinking it might be important she reports this to the police, who are very interested to note that it is for one Dwight Fricker, a gangster currently serving a long stretch in prison. At a loss to know why an unassuming and respectable fellow like Don should have such a card in his possession, the police decide to re-open the case and call in the man known as 'Finder' to see if there was more to the accountant than they thought...
This is the second book in the new Finder Mysteries by Simon Mason, and this time Finder is asked to use his considerable talents to see if he can shed some light on the case of Don Bayliss - a quiet corporate accountant whose apparent suicide shocked those that knew him. Finder gets to work following up the original investigation in his singular way, with an attention to detail that bears promising new lines of inquiry, somewhat to the consternation of the police force he is working for, and Don's pillar-of-the-community wife.
The story unfurls from Finder's point of view, very much as in the previous book, Missing Person, Alice. As I am coming to see, Finder's talent lies largely in getting witnesses to reveal more than they think they know, and the rational way he sifts through information he uncovers means the twists and turns of the suspenseful plot have a beautiful flow to them. Mason is very clever in the way he links incidental facts together to put thoughts into your mind about the direction of the story too, and there are nicely contrived red herrings to work through on the way to the ending you will not see coming.
I am delighted that a bit more of the man behind the reputation in this second book. Mason adds an extra layer to the mystery of what makes him tick on top of the little that was divulged about his Iraqi-born past during the Alice case. A picture is starting to form of a man who has had to deal with considerable losses in his life, and although his manner is mostly detached from the emotional aspects of the cases he works, there are times when this facade cracks to allow a glimpse of what lies within and the ghosts that haunt him. This really helps connect you to the character, and makes you want to find out more about how his experiences have shaped him. I loved how this also weaves in with the overarching themes of loneliness and melancholy that pervade this story.
It was also a joy to see that Finder's reading choices are a big part of the novella once again, with an intriguing linking allusion to Henry James, which will make you smile if you have read the first book as well. This time Finder is sipping the delights of The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson, who has a connection to Bournemouth, and Mason shrewdly reflects its themes of duality and darkness hidden within to perfection as the Don Bayliss investigation plays out. There is also a lovely side-order of choice musings about Mrs Dalloway by Virginia Woolf.
As expected, this second book went down just as nicely as the first one, and Mason's considerable talent as a crime writer continues to impress. If you have yet to discover his books, either in his cracking DI Wilkin's series, or in these new novellas, then you really should. I cannot wait for more!
The Case of the Lonely Accountant is available to buy now in hardcover, ebook and audio formats.
Thank you to riverrun for sending me a copy of this book in return for an honest review.
About the author:
Lost and Never Found is the third book in the DI Ryan Wilkins Mysteries. The first book, A Killing in November, received widespread critical acclaim and was shortlisted for the CWA Gold Dagger. The Second book, The Broken Afternoon, was a Times Audio Book of the Week and a Sunday Times Crime Book of the Month.
No comments:
Post a Comment