Customer Reviews

Lazybones (Detective Thorne Mysteries)

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(10)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Mark Billingham continues his panache for gritty, involving and highly readable crime fiction with this latest installment in his Tom Thorne series.

Thorne is involved this time in what appears to be some kind of vigilante killing. The posed naked dead body of a released rapist is found in a seedy hotel room. The victim had just been released from prison and is found posed rather prayerfully, his neck garroted, masked, etc. Thorne also finds out that someone called the local florist to arrange for a wreath to be sent to the hotel room. Through this accidental phone call, Thorne becomes involved with Eve Bloom, the lovely florist who took the call.
Another body turns up, again a rapist recently released from prison, killed in the same method, different hotel.
Thorne and his reliable partner, Dave Holland, dig deep into the case to try and find out who is responsible for these killings. Tackling the moral issue of whether this killer should be arrested or applauded, Billingham takes us on a nerve-wracking, surprising tale that climaxes in high fashion.
Billingham gives us a little more insight into Thorne's private life, including the bittersweet relationship between Thorne and his Alzheimer-ridden father. Dave Holland is also going through an emotional crisis with the approaching birth of his first child.
Billingham knows how to write..he keeps the reader totally engrossed in his tales, and gives us red herrings and hidden clues.
This series is one of the best out there...enjoy!!!

It's not that all British writers write well; it's just that so many of them do. The how's and why's of that are up for discussion. I've often found that UK thriller/procedural writers in particular leave waaaaaaaay too many blank spots, e.g. the actual lives of the characters they parade across the pages. Mark Billingham does not do this. He's created a believable and interesting character in Mr. Thorne. Yes, there are gaps. But that's for the reader to fill in. Reading needn't always be an entirely passive activity. This book is a solid, interesting read. Plenty of "ah ha" moments, pathways (both productive and of the dead-end variety) to explore. Basically, Billingham is a subtle writer---but not so much as to be beyond the reader's understanding. Excellent detective fiction with plenty of interesting character sketches.

I am new to Billingham's work this year. I enjoyed Detective Thorne in the first one so much that I had to get them all! In fact, I just ordered the newest one directly through a seller on Amazon-UK as it is not available in the states. :} His work is creative, suspenseful, and at the same time gives a glimpse of everyday life in England. I am very pleased with the quality of the book; the quality of service I was given and the level of commitment and follow-up Amazon and the seller's it hosts provides an avenue to meet new people, read new material and pay an honest price for the value. Thank you.

I don't know what surprised me more. THe fact that I had never heard of Mark Billingham, or that a book written purely from a Brits point of view (including the lingo) could hold my interest as well as entertain me. I picked this book up just browsing through my Barnes and Noble trying to find a beach read. The subject of the story a serial killer preying on rapists caught my attention so I gave it a read. Excellent writing, very entertaining. I recommend this book to anyone. Now of course I have to go back before I go foward to read the rest.

This third installment featuring Detective Inspector Tom Thorne has him on the trail of a vigilante killer who preys on convicted rapists. It's hard for Tom to feel too motivated in finding the killer due to a lack of sympathy of the "victims". Bodies start piling up and a cold case is tied into the investigation. Thorne finally finds an emotional connection to the case. His ensuing passion for cracking the case leads to many twists and turns.

This was a fast-paced thriller that got more suspenseful with each page. Toward the end of the book, I couldn't read fast enough to get to the climax. Tom Thorne was a very engaging and likable character. There was hardly any time spent on any of the details of the secondary characters brought up in past books that made it a little hard to follow. A little refresher on who everyone was would not have been remiss. Despite this slight failing this was an excellent read.

I've enjoyed several of Billingham's novels. I find him to be a good writer who can craft believable thrillers. This is a good example of his work -- solid characterization, decent plot, and a maddeningly simplistic writing style. With more expansive prose, he might be able to join the ranks of Rankin, Pelecanos, and Connelly.

According to the flap-copy, the author of these fascinating police procedurals is a stand-up comic in his other life. Sure couldn't prove it by reading the books. DI Tom Thorne is one of the best homicide detectives in London, even when he's kicking himself for screwing up an investigation. And he's becoming something of an expert on serial killers, whether he likes it or not. This time, the victim of a particular vicious murder in a seedy hotel room is a convicted rapist recently released from prison, so it's difficult for the media or the police -- even Thorne -- to work up much outrage. The victim was raped himself, which makes it pretty obviously an act of personal revenge. But then it happens again, which suggests a vigilante on a mission. Meanwhile, Thorne himself is trying to develop a relationship with a young female florist whom he met during his work on the first still unsolved killing. And his aging father, who often drives him crazy, definitely has Alzheimer's. Are all these other issues getting in the way of Thorne working the cases? You bet they are. But there's this retired female DCI called back to work on the new "cold case" squad, and what she's been turning up on a twenty-year-old murder just may save Thorne's bacon. Thorne himself is a profane, lager-drinking, country-music-loving copper with not a lot of ambition beyond his present job. He's in a comfortable rut. Long divorced, he gets lonely sometimes, but not lonely enough to pursue a serious romantic relationship. Billingham is first-rate at drawing his characters -- you can almost cast the film in your head -- and that includes the metropolis itself. And he's equally expert at portraying the day-to-day life of London's cops. Moreover, the truly horrific ending will stick in your mind.

There is a serial killer on the loose in London and it's Detective Inspector Tom Thorne's job to catch him. However the victims are a little out of the ordinary, they are rapists right out of prison and the general consensus seems to be pretty much that they had it coming and they way they get it ain't pretty. However, murder is murder and someone has to put an end to it and besides, if not Thorne, who?

I will admit that at first I thought this was going to be just another serial killer book. I hadn't read Billingham before, though I love British thrillers, especially those penned by Ian Rankin, Peter Robinson and Debra Crombie, so I wasn't prepared for the brilliant writing, the brilliant story and for the outstanding character of D.I. Thorne, who in kind of a crazy way kind of reminded me a a guy named Thorn (different spelling) who lives in Florida. I love James Hall's Thorn, and now I love mark Billingham's Thorne as well. I plan on going straight out and buying, "Sleepyhead" and "Scaredy Cat" and since I can't wait for them to release "The Burning Girl" in the U.S., I plan on going online and getting it from the U.K. Mr. Mark Billingham tells a super story, pick up one of his books and see if I'm not telling you true.

LAZYBONES (Police Proc-Tom Thorne-England-Cont) - VG
Billingham, Mark - 3rd in series
Little, Brown, 2003, UK Hardcover - ISBN: 0316724939

First Sentence: 13 March Dearest Dougie, I'm sorry about this being another typed letter, but as I explained before, it's difficult for me to write to you from home, so I do it at work when the boss isn't looking, or in my lunch hour (like today!) or whatever.

When the brutally murdered body of an ex-con, just released for rape, is found, DI Tom Thorne and his fellow officers need to investigate the present, and the past, to find the killer. The stakes get higher with a second murder and a third. Trying to start a new relationship and worrying about his father's health, Thorne doesn't expect this to be a care that may cost him his life.

This book started off a bit slow and I wasn't certain quite what was going on or how it fit together. It didn't take long, however, before I was completely absorbed in the story. Billingham creates visual pictures. While Thorne is the protagonist and you do get to know more about him in this book, the supporting characters are fully dimensional to where it almost reads as an ensemble cast. The plot is built like a jigsaw puzzle with pieces coming into place one-by-one until the last tragic and frightening piece creating the whole picture. This series has grown on me, but this is the best I've read so far and I'm looking forward to the next.

Timing is everything. Comedians live and die by timing. There is a musician named Sam Butera, a master sax player and singer whose career began in the 1940s and continues to this day, who intersperses his musical numbers with jokes. His are not new jokes; I first heard most of them in grade school, when Eisenhower was the president and Pius was the Pope. Yet, when he tells them, I am more often than not howling, laughing so hard that it brings tears to my eyes. It's all in the timing.

Mark Billingham is a comedian. His primary work in comedy has been in the United Kingdom, where he does standup club appearances as well as radio and television writing. He is also, however, a writer of British police procedural fiction, and an amazingly good one. In the course of three books --- SLEEPYHEAD, SCAREDY CAT, and now LAZYBONES --- he has become an A-list writer of police procedural fiction. And while Billingham's comedic work is bitingly funny, his literary work is dark and grim, all the more noticeably so when he slips a bit of black humor into it.

Billingham's Detective Inspector Tom Thorne of the London Police Serious Crime Group is an improbable protagonist, a middle-aged divorcee with a fondness for American country western music --- Cash, Haggard and Jones --- and, as he will himself admit, a somewhat haphazard approach to relationships. Thorne has a certain charm, almost in spite of himself. He has a couple of million cousins in spirit on this side of the Atlantic, and you wouldn't think of any of them as policemen. He has a love-hate relationship with his work, repulsed by the examples of man's inhumanity to man that he encounters on a daily basis yet totally engrossed in the pursuit of the perpetrators. If you've ever watched the television show "The Shield," you'll be reminded to some extent of Dutch, without the irritating personality traits.

As interesting as Thorne is, however, where Billingham really shines is in the creation of his villains. LAZYBONES is no exception, and even ratchets things up a notch or three from the villains in SCAREDY CAT and SLEEPYHEAD. And there's a bit of a conundrum in LAZYBONES. Someone is murdering convicted rapists. And we're not talking one-time offenders, or guys who had a difficult time understanding that "no" really, really means "no." We're talking about individuals who are serial offenders, people who we're all better off without, who have blown their chance to live peacefully among us and have separated themselves from the flock. Thorne is conflicted. He is not especially upset that the recidivism rate is being lowered but nonetheless doggedly pursues the culprit, who is, after all, committing murder. Whoever it is, they are doing a topnotch job of it, staging the victims just so and giving them a taste of their own medicine, if you will.

Thorne, however, keeps hitting dead ends. How is the murderer locating the rapists? How is he entering and leaving the scenes of the crimes without anyone noticing? And what is his motive? Thorne keeps hitting dead ends in his personal life, as well. He meets Eve Bloom, an attractive woman who is tangentially connected to the first murder and who seems to be drawn to him, yet Thorne can never quite connect with her. Thorne's father, meanwhile, continues to slowly sink deeper into the tarpit of Alzheimer's disease.

Billingham's primary focus, however, is less on Thorne's personal life (and the lives of his fellow Serious Crime officers) and more on the investigation. And his timing and pacing are perfect as always. His narrative is never rushed, but doesn't plod along either. Most importantly, Billingham's conclusion is devoid of any of the "okay, time to wrap this up" atmosphere that occasionally creeps into a novel of this type. Billingham instead ratchets the suspense level incrementally upward, completing the denouement with a bit of dry humor that is ultimately perfect, in light of what has (almost) happened.

LAZYBONES is a topnotch work by an intriguing and talented writer. What more could one ask for, other than his next work? Highly recommended.

--- Reviewed by Joe Hartlaub