The Burning Girl - Hardcover

Billingham, Mark

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0060745266 ISBN 13: 9780060745264

Publisher: William Morrow & Co, 2005

Synopsis

Enmeshed in a case involving a contract killer and a turf war between organized crime bosses, detective Thom Thorne agrees to help former DCI Carol Chamberlain in an old murder investigation and discovers a disturbing link between both cases and a ring of protection rackets. By the author of Lazy Bones. 30,000 first printing.

About this title

Review:

With The Burning Girl, Mark Billingham steps away from the inventively vicious serial killers of his earlier thrillers to have his police detective Thorne investigate something equally unpleasant--the men who kill for money not kicks and the gangsters who ruthlessly employ them. Thorne's retired friend Carol put Rooker away years ago for setting fire to a girl--whom he mistakenly believed to be the daughter of gang-boss Kelly; the girl did not die, then, but wished she had. Now someone is ringing Carol, saying it was them that burned the girl, and Rooker is promising to tell the truth; Ryan, Alison Kelly's ex-husband and her father's chosen successor, is caught up in gang warfare with a new North London Turkish mafia. As always, Billingham delivers psychological insights you half wish you didn't have, along with a profound sense of just how far the damaged Thorne will go in the name of justice. Anyone who knows North London will recognise this as being as atmospheric as it is moody--Billingham continues to develop from book to book. --Roz Kaveney

Review:

Scary, pell-mell, cliff-hanging thriller. --Literary Review

About this edition

• Publisher: William Morrow & Co
• Publication date: 2005
• ISBN 10: 0060745266
• ISBN 13: 9780060745264
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 356