Billingham''s second thriller after Sleepyhead featuring London
Det. Insp. Tom Thorne offers a twist on the serial killer subgenre.
Brooding, melancholy Thorne heads a team of detectives who are
alerted to the death of a young mother brutally strangled as her
three-year-old son looks on. The body of a second murder victim,
strangled in the same manner, turns up the same day, and Thorn and
his team surmise they have a serial killer on their hands. The
first half of the book deals with Thorne''s discovery that there are
really two killers at work and introduces the childhood backstory
of the murderers. The second half picks up speed as the actual hunt
commences. Billingham is adept at creating believable characters
with ordinary and not-so-ordinary personal problems, then weaving
them into the plot in surprising ways. At times, though, he pushes
too hard to make Thorne''s colleagues quirky: "Thorne stared at the
figure in black fleece, with shaved head and a startling collection
of facial piercings. Phil Hendricks was not everyone''s idea of a
pathologist, but he was the best Thorne had ever worked with."
Thorne''s gloomy internal musings on death and guilt tend to slow
things down, but Billingham''s handling of the plot is deft, fair
and scattered with enough red herrings to open a fish and chips
shop. When the mastermind behind both sets of killings is revealed
in a dramatic denouement, readers will give the author his due and
settle back to wait for the next installment of this dependable
series.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers
to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
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