Crime fiction is my guilty pleasure. I pretend I will only read great works of literature – seminal novels – and then, when I am alone (or when I can hide behind my Kindle) I binge-read entire crime series. I like to get cross when I can guess a major plot twist in advance, then I am rightly put in my place when I can never guess the ending.

This series looks like it might be a good ‘un. A single father detective, and enough nods to historical crime to whet the appetite of any wannabe detective. When I’m not reading, I binge-watch Elementary, Criminal Minds, Cold Case, old Morse.

Parsons says, in an afterword, that he intends the series, and his protagonist Max Wolfe, to make good use of The Black Museum, or The Crime Museum in New Scotland Yard. A room containing evidence of “London’s fight against crime for the last 140 years”. I love this, the idea of a room stuffed with old weapons, clues that were never solved, early attempts at finger-printing and the like. There was an exhibition about it just this year. I missed it. I did, however, go to see an awesome collection called Forensics: Anatomy of Crime, at the Wellcome Trust. It was gory and wonderful and had replicas of the dolls houses that were ‘decorated’ with murder scenes to educate trainee detectives.

I would’ve been a good detective.