Preview Buried
Starred Review. British author Billingham's taut sixth procedural to feature London policeman Tom Thorne (after Lifeless) establishes him as one of the best new hard-boiled voices. Assigned to investigate the kidnapping of 16-year-old Luke Mullen, DI Tom Thorne knows it won't be a straightforward case when he discovers the boy's father is ex–Det. Chief Supt. Tony Mullen. As Thorne and his new partner, DI Louise Porter, dig deeper into the kidnapping, they discover unsettling connections to an unsolved hate crime and to Grant Freestone, a wanted man with a grudge against the senior Mullen. An unexpected twist in the case turns kidnapping into murder, and Thorne and Porter are thrust into a dangerous game of cat and mouse against a criminal with disturbing ties to the police force itself. With its effortless point-of-view shifts that illuminate the unfolding stories from myriad angles, this superb suspense thriller cements Billingham's place along with such American heavyweights as Michael Connelly and Dennis Lehane. (Aug.)
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The sixth entry in the Tom Thorne series finds the London homicide detective assigned to a kidnap detail seeking out the teenage son of a retired police official. Soon after Thorne admits he needs a body to really sink his teeth into a case, he gets two--the kidnappers. They're found slashed to death, the teen's prints are all over the knife, and he has disappeared. But Thorne believes the young man's been reabducted, and he digs into the father's past to find out who might have done it. He starts with the man the ex-cop failed to place on his list of known enemies, a child molester on the lam for murder. Meanwhile, Thorne copes with a steadily worsening back injury, late-night appearances by his dead father, and the romantic travails of his best friend, medical examiner Phil Hendricks. On the bright side, his kidnap-squad counterpart seems to fancy him when she is not freezing him out of the investigation. Billingham is a television writer, and Thorne's ripe to star in one of those deliciously dour procedurals the Brits are so skilled at turning out. Frank Sennett
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