| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Product Details
Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
|
|
Share your thoughts with other customers:
|
||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Good Brit Thriller,
By
This review is from: Death Message: A Novel of Suspense (Hardcover)
Although I believe that British chick lits (can you say Bridget Jones?) are always at the top of their game, I run hot and cold on British thrillers - with the exception of Mark Billingham - I like all of his books as he does not hesitate to write very dark, creepy and scary books.
Death Message rates somewhere in the between a 3 and 4 star review. One of the things I like about Billingham is that he never runs away from writing some somewhat gross and gruesome scenes - and he manages to do this without it being gratuitous somehow. Death Message does not really deliver this as much as in the previous books. I like the basic premise - our returning character Detective Thom Thorne is back and he is getting "death messages" through his cell phone - with the killer sending him, at first, pictures of dead victims and progresses to sending him pictures of future victims. This, of course, triggers a massive manhunt for the killer - who we discover the identify of about 1/3 into the storyline. Maybe this is why the book was not quite as suspensful for me? not sure. However, this book was still a good read and kept me entertained enough to stick it through.
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
"TOM THORNE KNEW A DEAD MAN WHEN HE SAW ONE",
This review is from: Death Message: A Novel of Suspense (Hardcover)
Okay, okay, admittedly I'm a pushover for British crime novels, but most will be, too, after reading any of Mark Billingham's seven Tom Thorne thrillers. Thorne is a Detective Investigator with savvy and a heart, very human, so we relate to him easily, sprout goose bumps when he's in deep trouble, and once we begin a Thorne title cannot put it down until the end. By now he seems like an old friend, one we know well but still cannot predict what he will say or do next. Billingham brings his latest thriller very much to the present by the important use of a cellphone. Just as Thorne walks into his kitchen to tell Elvis he's sorry for forgetting to feed her and to make some tea his cellphone rings. He knew who it would be from - Louise, which made him smile. But then the phone rang again and this message was as far from Louise as possible. "It was a multimedia message, with a photograph attached.....and Tom Thorne knew a dead man when he saw one." As techies scramble to trace the sender another photo arrives, and before long Thorne finds himself faced with an enemy capable of manipulating others into doing his dastardly deeds for him, and it starts to hit Thorne very close to home. In police lingo the phrase "death message" refers to telling someone that they have just lost a loved one. But, in this case, those messages are directed toward Thorne but why and by whom? - Gail Cooke
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Mixed Feeling For This Mystery,
By
Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?)
This review is from: Death Message (Tom Thorne) (Kindle Edition)
This is the sixth Thorne book I've read in this series and I probably won't read another one for awhile. I find I get tired of continuing characters in a book series when they get near or at double digit figures. In Billingham's case, DI Tom Thorne is such a depressing character that I get tired of his constant dwellings on his purposefully meaningless life. His girlfriend Louise is just as depressing as he is so the dysfunctional relationship goes on and on in this book. It takes up much too much story time in this dark tome. Boring.
What makes this a five star review is that the author writes quite well and has forged a murderer, Marcus Brooks,that really makes the book work. I wound up rooting for the killer over the cops. His story is very well written....a story that stays with you. I find for me that trilogies work best. I quit reading Bosch, Delaware and Cross, etc.....I just lost interest in their similar plots, thoughts, injuries (that should be crippling for life), escapes from serial killers and whatever. The characters grow boring and stale, the bland un-stylish writing becoming more like a one week writing spree looking for a paycheck. The only happy (somewhat) person in this book is friend Hendricks who is part of the plot but not really there in a way in this book. This is a dark, depressing book with very fine story within the story.
Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review
|
|
Tags Customers Associate with This Product(What's this?)Click on a tag to find related items, discussions, and people.
|
|
This product's forum
Active discussions in related forums
Search Customer Discussions
|
Related forums
|
|
|
|
|
