The Cyclist by Tim Sullivan

First published in Great Britain in 2020; published by Grove Atlantic on January 13, 2026

It isn’t easy being George Cross. It’s easy enough for him to perform his investigative duties as a Detective Sergeant — in fact, he excels at them — but interacting with other people requires supreme mental effort. Cross is on the spectrum. He doesn’t make small talk and is distracted from his thoughts when others do. He is often perceived as rude because he doesn’t recognize and respond to social cues. He doesn’t want “to have to deal with social interactions and be on his best behaviour” because it takes too much energy.

Yet the same condition that impairs his ability to socialize contributes to his intense focus, his ability to organize and compartmentalize, and his obsession with detail. The same skill he brings to jigsaw puzzles — recognizing patterns — helps him identify clues to murders. When people depart from their patterns, they must have a reason. If their departures coincide with a crime, Cross looks for a connection.

Tim Sullivan is far from the only author who has used autistic behaviors to create intriguing characters, but George Cross is one of the best in crime fiction. It would be easy to exploit Cross's social ineptness for laughs. While Sullivan gives his readers the opportunity to laugh, he does so with sensitivity. He looks at Cross through the eyes of his colleagues, helping the reader understand Cross’ autism from different perspectives.

Cross is exasperating to others (he would be a handful to work with) but he’s tolerated because of his success as a detective. His current partner, DS Josie Ottey, is sticking around because she’s starting to understand Cross. By being patient, she’s also helping him recognize social cues and respond appropriately — a task that Cross sometimes and only grudgingly appreciates.

For the sake of maintaining a cordial work environment, most people go out of their way to avoid offending co-workers. They tell white lies. They might say, “Oh, she just stepped out for coffee” instead of “She’s avoiding you because you criticized her.” Cross will have none of that. He doesn’t care if he offends others and his feathers aren’t ruffled when other workers share unpleasant observations. In his words: “If only more people just told the truth instead of hiding behind badly concocted, feeble excuses. Everything would be so much more straightforward.”

Cross’ gruff personality is the hook that sets this series apart from others. Cross has no tact because he doesn’t understand the need for it. In his view, tact is a barrier to honesty. Others might see him as rude and blunt; he sees himself as getting to the point with maximum efficiency. While he isn’t endearing to others, the window that Sullivan opens to Cross’ life makes it possible to sympathize with his struggle to interact socially. And even if Cross is socially awkward, it is easy to understand some of his peeves, including his disdain for social media (“I don’t know how people find the time, and why on earth do they think their lives are of such interest to other people?”).

As the title suggests, this installment's murder victim is a cyclist. George rides a bicycle to work and follows the sport of competitive cycling. He instantly recognizes the corpse on an autopsy table as a cyclist, given his low body fat, muscular thighs, and distinct tan lines just above the knee. The murder victim — found in a garage that is scheduled to be demolished — turns out to be Alexander Paphides. Alex worked in his family’s Greek restaurant, but he was an avid cyclist who, when last seen by his family, was planning to depart for a competition with the other members of his amateur cycling club.

George’s investigation follows clues related to performance-enhancing drugs, as well as a pharmacist and fellow cyclist who denies knowledge of Alex’s doping. But could the murder have been related to Alex’s sixteen-year-old girlfriend? Alex was 32 but his relationship with Debbie was more than platonic. Alex was at odds with his brother and father about the future of the family business, while Debbie seems fearful of Alex’s mother.

Ongoing issues in Cross’ life all focus on relationships, particularly with his father, his co-workers, and a local priest. Cross dutifully has dinner once a week with his father but is disturbed to the point of panic when his father wants to change the dinners from Wednesday to Thursday. Cross has no religious beliefs (his analytic mind demands evidence to support any belief) but he enjoys playing the organ. A local church allows him to practice on its organ if he keeps it tuned, but Cross resists the priest’s effort to coax him into performing a recital for the parish. This all contributes to an unusual but welcome degree of characterization for the series protagonist.

When all the clues point to a particular suspect, most police detectives are happy to declare victory, arrest the suspect, and move on to the next case. Even if all the clues don’t point in the same direction, most detectives will pick a suspect and ignore the clues that are inconsistent with the detective’s theory of guilt. Not Cross. He infuriates his boss by insisting that the investigation continue until every detail fits into the puzzle perfectly. With Cross, if one fact doesn’t fit, either the fact is untrue or the puzzle hasn’t been solved. And so, just when it seems that one suspect is guilty, Cross discovers that the crime is not quite as simple as the detectives imagined.

The mystery of Alex’s murder is multi-faceted. While a reader might solve part of the puzzle, it may take a reader who is as focused as Cross to spot all the clues that lead to a full resolution. I am grateful to Grove Atlantic for bringing this entertaining British series to American readers.

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