Lazybones

Rating:
Summary: Frustrations and grunt-work of modern police
Review: Detective Inspector Tom Thorne and his Serious Crimes unit gets called in when a recently released rapist is found murdered--and raped. There are plenty of leads--at first--but all dry up leaving Thorne with little but busy-work. But when another convicted rapist is also found murdered, with the same method, it starts to look like a serial killer is at work. The only thing is, half of the police force, and more than half of the population of London, thinks that the killer just may be a hero. Thorne doesn't think about heros, though. He thinks about doing his job--and finding a bit of distraction that doesn't include his Alzheimer-suffering father.

Author Mark Billingham does an excellent job portraying the frustrations and methodical grunt-work of a modern police force. Each of the cops involved in the case has their own issues--Thorne is afraid to commit to his growing relationship with a girlfriend, another struggles with his wife's pregnancy and the changes that is making in their life while another finds new meaning when she is called back to work on cold cases. Waiting for lucky breaks, shaking down informants, and hunting for long-lost data takes up much of their time.

Billingham reveals the evidence slowly, letting the reader know a bit more than any of the detectives involved, but teasing us with what we don't know as well. His strong writing hooked me as a reader and drove me through the book.

Rating:
Summary: A THORNE AMIDST THE ROSES
Review: 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!!!

Rating:
Summary: Engrossing page-turner
Review: 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.

Rating:
Summary: A Topnotch Work by an Intriguing and Talented Writer
Review: 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