The Woman Who Laughed

The Finder Mysteries are everything great crime fiction aspires to be: human, intricate and hugely entertaining. The Woman Who Laughed kept me guessing, to the last page, and kept me thinking long after that. Simon Mason is a master storyteller whose books should be on every serious reader’s wishlist. – Sarah HilaryMason brings to life Sheffield’s red-light district, while Finder’s quest awakens sleeping dogs with devastating consequences * Mail on Sunday *Simon Mason’s Finder mysteries are well-written, elegantly-structured and unputdownable, bringing shades of Simenon’s Maigret to contemporary rain soaked Britain * Daunt Books *Simon Mason packs more into 200 pages than many writers do at twice the length. Kudos. * The Times *[Mason] has struck gold with his laconic, just-the-facts Finder mysteries, about a freelance investigator brought in by police to track missing people * The Sun (Crime & Thriller special) *[T]ranslates the ethos of Georges Simenon’s Maigret into an English setting: concise, richly characterised, impeccably plotted – Barry Forshaw (The Best of Summer Crime, Financial Times)Crime fans are hooked on Mason’s tight and gripping novellas * Peterborough Telegraph *Dark, exquisite and utterly absorbing, The Finder Mysteries are a rare and special thing * Russ Thomas *Mason packs more into 200 pages than many writers do at twice the length * Sunday Times *Puzzling, literary, concise and utterly compelling * Choice Magazine *British procedural with local flavour and dry humour. Brings to mind classic noir, but rooted in the here and now * Loaded *At once searching, believable, short, well-written, and provided with a Maigret-like protagonist who is used by Mason to offer a wise humanity in another brilliant novel. * Critic (September Book of the Month) *

Simon Mason has pursued parallel careers as a publisher and an author, whose YA crime novels Running Girl, Kid Got Shot and Hey, Sherlock! feature the sixteen-year-old slacker genius Garvie Smith. A former Managing Director of David Fickling Books, where he worked with many wonderful writers, including Philip Pullman, he has also taught at Oxford Brookes University and has been a Royal Literary Fund Fellow at Exeter College, Oxford.

His critically acclaimed DI Ryan Wilkins Mysteries, which started with A Killing in November, have received numerous accolades, including being shortlisted for the CWA Gold Dagger, selected as Times Audio Book of the Week and Sunday Times Crime Book of the Month. The Woman Who Laughed is a Finder Mystery.