Time of Death (Tom Thorne Novels)

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In Time of Death Mark Billingham has provided the reader with another well written, complex narrative that speaks to issues that we can all empathise with. Now the unspoken rule with crime books is that the author can't just pluck the guilty party out of thin air at the end of the book, the reader must have met the guilty party during the narrative, and using this logic I figured I sussed it all out by the mid-way point. Following not too far off his disastrous outing to Bardsey Island this book opens with Tom and Helen on a much needed holiday in the Cotswolds. This series is now well established with some strong characters that regular readers will already be familiar with. This was an odd one - I have read most of the preceding DCI Thorne novels, and have (mainly) enjoyed them very much, but this felt a little less enjoyable than I remember the others.

Thorne and his partner police officer Helen Weeks are on a trip to the small Warwickshire town of Polesford where an old school friend of Helen's is in trouble and in great need of comfort and assurance, her partner Stephen Bates having been arrested and accused of murder. The story follows Thorne, and his girlfriend Helen (also a police officer) after they get involved - at her bidding - in a missing persons case up in Warwickshire where Helen grew up. This is DI Tom Thorne’s thirteenth outing and although I haven’t read the entire series I’ve dipped in and out over the years. There is still an extremely clever and killer on the loose and a missing girl who Thorne believes might still be alive.

It's at this point that you can stand back and see where the author led you on a merry dance - and in this book, Mr Billingham dances so well. Linda has two teenage children, trapped in an unfamiliar house while their own is combed by the scenes of crime officers, the tension between them all is palpable especially as they are being ‘looked after’ by the police and gawped at by the press camped outside the door.

Thank you to NetGalley, publishers Grove Atlantic and author Mark Billingham for the opportunity to read this book in exchange for an honest review. As the local police have no interest in alternate theories or suspects, he looks into the crimes himself - and the further he investigates, the more it looks as though Bates has been expertly framed. Sign up to the Little, Brown newsletter for news of upcoming publications, competitions and updates from our authors. The question is are they right and if so can they solve the identity of the killer before another body appears. Like The Bones Beneath, which was something of a departure from the standard London setting of the novels, Time of Death also uproots Thorne to a different location and presents him in a somewhat unfamiliar situation.

As the evidence mounts up against the man a press feeding frenzy begins and the Bates family find themselves under siege from not only the press but hordes of angry people who seem to take it upon themselves to punish the family for the alleged crimes of Stephen Bates. This time Thorne is not on a case at all, but on holidays with his partner Helen Weeks (also a cop and the main character in Billingham's novel, In The Dark which I have but have not yet read). While he has no authority or connection to the case he begins to question the way the investigation is going and starts to pursue avenues of his own. Despite having no official roll to play, Thorne investigates on his own and becomes convinced that, despite overwhelming evidence of his guilt, the police have got the wrong man. Neither seems particularly happy with each other but it's probably because they are both bloody minded and tenacious and touchy.

The investigation into the abduction of the missing girls is a fascinating story which contains its fair share of surprises, made all the more shocking by the fact that we witness events through the eyes of outsiders Thorne and Weeks. And as with all good mysteries, as the story progresses, we follow blind alleys, eventually figure out who did what, and learn more about the detectives' own lives -- including Helen's past in this town. Il semble que Mark Billingham veuille faire évoluer son personnage dans une autre direction, hors de Londres par exemple pour les deux derniers livres, à voir ce que cela va donner par la suite.I've written so many reviews recently complaining about too many commas, too many similes, appalling spelling and grammar, having to go back through a book due to not remembering who So-and-So is. This leaves Tom at a loose end and he just can’t resist carrying out his own investigation – a true busman’s holiday. I do love crimes that are set in small communities, there is something very distinctive about the way they operate, with everyone knowing so much about each other’s lives, the suspicion of outsiders, the gossip and the protection and tolerance of their own, up to a point. For the first part of the read the couple are more observing than detecting so it seemed to start off quite slowly for me, but once they got into their stride I really enjoyed this story, which kept me guessing as to whether or not Stephen Bates had committed the crimes and if not, then who had done it, with quite a number of suspects emerging.