Time of Death
- Authors: Mark Billingham
- Series: Book 13 in the Tom Thorne series
- Type: Novel
- Genres: Mystery
- Rank:
- Rating: 4.2 based on 5,638 reviews
- Release Date: June 2, 2015
- Print length: 448 pages (Hardcover)
About the book
Two British police detectives take on a case close to home: "One of the most consistently entertaining, insightful crime writers working today" (Gillian Flynn).
Tom Thorne is on holiday with his girlfriend, DS Helen Weeks, when two girls are abducted in Helen's hometown in Warwickshire. When a body is discovered and a man is arrested, Helen recognizes the suspect's wife as an old school friend, and reluctantly returns home for the first time in twenty-five years to lend her support.
As his partner faces up to a past she has tried desperately to forget and a media storm engulfs the town, Thorne becomes convinced that, despite overwhelming evidence of his guilt, the police have got the wrong man. There is still an extremely clever killer on the loose - and a missing girl who Thorne believes might still be alive...
Accolades
Praise for Time of Death
Billingham conjures many moods in this suspenseful thriller... This is a multilayered, expertly crafted look at the many moving parts of an investigation and the terror unleashed by a crafty killer.
Billingham has seemed to be incapable of writing any way but wonderfully since Sleepyhead, his first Tom Thorne novel... Billingham is always spot on, but Time of Death is pitch-perfect, evenly balanced between plot and character. You won’t be able to read it without wondering why all books can’t be this good.
Clever and inventive.
DI Tom Thorne and his lover, DS Helen Weeks, return to Helen's hated hometown in Warwickshire to confront some ugly accusations and some even uglier secrets... . What lingers in the memory is the group portrait of the Polesford locals brutally closing ranks against a man they're certain deserves to die.
Builds to a surprising and satisfying climax.
Some ingenious forensic footwork. What is most impressive about the novel, however, is the astute observation of the beleaguered Bates family, who turn in on themselves as the inhabitants of the town turn on them.
The writing displays the virtues that have made Mark Billingham a bestseller: wit, careful plotting, attention to detail (some of it gruesome) and great characterizationnot just Thorne and Helen but subsidiary figures such as the e-cigarette-puffing local police chief... An entertaining read. This won’t disappoint Billingham’s legions of fans.
About the author
