Into the River Dead by Michael Dylan

Timy reviews Into the River Dead, the fourth book in the DI Simon Wise thriller series by Michael Dylan.

Review(s) of previous book(s): Rich Men, Dead Men, The Killing Game, Talking of the Dead

I received an Audible code from the author in exchange for an honest review.

Possible fit for The Sound of Madness Reading Challenge 2025 prompts:

Joker prompt that goes with anything: Freed from Desire

A body with no clues. A killer with no heart. A cop with no hope.

When the body of a young woman is found on the banks of the River Thames, Detective Inspector Simon Wise is called to investigate. With his team at half-strength and still trying to deal with their own trauma, he hopes it’s a straight-forward case. But London is a cruel city and Wise soon find himself hunting the most ruthless of killers.

Into The River Dead is the fourth book in the DI Simon Wise Crime Thriller series and set on the streets of London. If you like dark police procedurals, complex characters, and shocking twists, then you’ll love Michael Dylan’s pulse-pounding crime series.

It might not come as a surprise, that I thoroughly enjoy the DI Simon Wise series – I mean, I’m already on book 4, which I read twice, but that’s less because I loved it so much, and more because I waited too long to review it after the first read and decided to refresh my memories. I mean, worse things have happened before. Plus, I really didn’t mind, as Into the River Dead is another excellent installment.

A bit of housekeeping before we get to the actual review. Since this is the fourth book, mild spoilers for previous books might be found here, so proceed with that in mind.

Things are not looking up for Wise: his family is far away, his team is in dire need of more people and he even has to deal with a new boss – one he quite antagonised previously, and it’s safe to say they are on anything but good terms – while his old one is on temporary leave. Also, investigation continues in his brother’s case, so he has his plate full. What he absolutely didn’t need was a possible serial murder case. Life rarely cares about what we need, though.

The main focus of Into the River Dead is the investigation into the death of Justine Mayweather, a twentysomething accountant at a marketing firm, who tends to date older, wealthy men who finance her luxurious lifestyle but are emotionally unavailable. It takes a while for the case to get going as there is barely any evidence found – partly because the killer cleaned up after themselves, and partly because being in the river for days tends not to do a lot of good for a body. Video footage is scarce, and the people in Justine’s building are pretty much unhelpful, as no one really knew her. It also doesn’t help that there is a lot of tension within Wise’s team with their new boss and his two lackeys who join the team. One of them more willing to do his bidding than the other. But they also bring a fresh dynamic into the series, which is not necessarily a bad thing. On the contrary. It never hurts to shake things up a bit, and Dylan handles that quite well.

Similarly to the previous books, Wise still remains the main character, and while we follow him through his own personal hell, we also get to know some of the other characters a bit more – there is Hannah, of course, but this time we get a closer look at Hicksy and Donuth who’ve been part of the team from the beginning. The former is struggling with grief, and the latter finally starts to take his life into his own hands, realising that things have to change if he wants to be taken seriously. Dylan’s characterisation is still top-notch, which is probably the biggest part of why I’m so into this series. That, and I really want to know how things will go down between the Wise twins.

I enjoyed the investigation part of Into the River Dead, not least because I wasn’t sure who the culprit might be, so that was cleverly done. I love being along for the ride when it comes to crime mysteries.

As usual, I can’t recommend highly enough the DI Simon Wise series to anyone who enjoys crime thrillers and investigation procedurals. Michael Dylan keeps putting the bar higher and higher with each book, and I’m already waiting with baithed breath for whatever is coming next.