Lazybones - Hardcover

Billingham, Mark

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0060560851 ISBN 13: 9780060560850

Publisher: William Morrow & Co, 2004

Synopsis

In the wake of a series of ex-convict slayings by an anonymous pen-pal who befriended the convicts while they were in prison and then murdered them upon their releases, detective inspector Tom Thorne discovers a link between the killings and a twenty-five-year-old murder-suicide case. By the author of Scaredy Cat and Sleepyhead.

About this title

Review:

Lazybones confirms our sense of Mark Billingham as a thriller writer determined to put ever more inventive spins on the police procedural and the serial killer novel. His police officers--hard-working Country fan Thorne, pierced gay pathologist Hendricks and the rest--find themselves on a case that raises complicated issues for them; they have continually to remind themselves that dead rapists have as much right not to be raped and murdered as anyone else.

Billingham's tricksiness--he tells us just enough of what the killer is thinking to keep us intrigued and confused--goes along with a real sense of London's back streets: the shabbiness of small hotels and the lonely hours of the early morning. The case involves not only pursuing present cases, but chasing up back-story; among all its other merits, this is an intelligent and humane discussion of changing attitudes to rape and its investigation. There was a time, after all, not so long ago, when police regularly failed to take rape seriously enough to get convictions. This is not just an ingenious thriller--Billingham makes us care what happens to Thorne, who is in far more jeopardy than he ever begins to know. --Roz Kaveney

Review:

LAZYBONES is insanely gripping, the type of book that can rob you of a whole night's sleep. The dark humour is perfectly weighted, the rhythm of the prose is perfectly quick and our hero is likeably dishevelled and careworn Big Issue An excellent thriller Dublin Evening Herald A compellingly satisfying police procedural that never loosens its grip on your throat Daily Mail LAZYBONES is meticulously researched, as interesting as it is enjoyable Daily Mirror

About this edition

• Publisher: William Morrow & Co
• Publication date: 2004
• ISBN 10: 0060560851
• ISBN 13: 9780060560850
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 321