Sleepyhead by Mark Billingham  (21)
$7.50
|
Lifeless by Mark Billingham (7)
$7.99
|
The Burning Girl : A Novel by Mark Billingham  (8)
|
Buried by Mark Billingham  (9)
$7.99
|
The Treatment : A Novel by MO HAYDER (39)
|
This item is not eligible for Amazon Prime, but millions of other items are. Join Amazon Prime today. Already a member? Sign in.
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||
Customers Who Bought This Item Also Bought
Editorial Reviews
From Publishers Weekly
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.
From Booklist
"Red herring" doesn't do justice to the device this taut tale of twinned serial killers employs so deliciously. Obviously having a great time, Billingham releases a small school of herring to keep mystery-solving readers in a pickle. More than a match for Henning Mankell's dour Swede Kurt Wallander, gruff and guilt-ridden Detective Inspector Tom Thorne drives his dedicated but dysfunctional police unit to bring a duo of London murderers to justice during the December holidays. The real meat of this smart, fast-paced procedural lies in its realistically raw characters--detectives and killers as good at their jobs as they are depressed about doing them. Thorne, so blinded by his zeal to crack the case that he'll offhandedly humiliate a supportive supervisor to get his risky plans approved, is the strongest of the lot. But from the ace medical examiner who sports an extra facial piercing for each new boyfriend to a pair of vividly imagined killers, the supporting cast is spot-on as well. Happily, a third entry in this series, which started with Sleepyhead [BKL My 1 02], is already in the pipeline. Frank Sennett
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
See all Editorial Reviews
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.
From Booklist
"Red herring" doesn't do justice to the device this taut tale of twinned serial killers employs so deliciously. Obviously having a great time, Billingham releases a small school of herring to keep mystery-solving readers in a pickle. More than a match for Henning Mankell's dour Swede Kurt Wallander, gruff and guilt-ridden Detective Inspector Tom Thorne drives his dedicated but dysfunctional police unit to bring a duo of London murderers to justice during the December holidays. The real meat of this smart, fast-paced procedural lies in its realistically raw characters--detectives and killers as good at their jobs as they are depressed about doing them. Thorne, so blinded by his zeal to crack the case that he'll offhandedly humiliate a supportive supervisor to get his risky plans approved, is the strongest of the lot. But from the ace medical examiner who sports an extra facial piercing for each new boyfriend to a pair of vividly imagined killers, the supporting cast is spot-on as well. Happily, a third entry in this series, which started with Sleepyhead [BKL My 1 02], is already in the pipeline. Frank Sennett
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
See all Editorial Reviews
Product Details
Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
|
