Buried - Hardcover

Billingham, Mark

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0061255696 ISBN 13: 9780061255694

Publisher: HarperCollins, 2007

Synopsis

When the son of a former high-ranking police officer goes missing, Detective Inspector Tom Thorne finds himself in a grisly maze of past cases that places him in the direct path of a killer. By the author of Lifeless. 25,000 first printing.

About this title

Review:

The fashion in which Mark Billingham has climbed his way to the top of the British crime writing fraternity should cause no one any surprise. His secret (as his latest book, Buried, comprehensively proves) is simple: Billingham's work is always utterly reliable, delivering gritty and authoritative crime fiction writing in which the sense of locale is always spot-on.

Here, DI Tom Thorne is asked to help in the case of a teenage boy who has disappeared. He is the son of a once high-ranking police officer (now retired), and Thorne’s first endeavour is to ask the father, ex DCI-Mullen, to draw up a list of all those in his past who might have reason to hold a grudge. But then Thorne discovers that there is an omission from the list: a man who has made serious threats to Mullen and his family. And as Billingham's beleaguered hero strains every sinew to track down the boy before he is killed, he has to find out why his ex-police colleague has lied to him.

As so often before with Billingham, it's the steady accumulation of disturbing detail that makes this novel so compelling. The author eschews easy thrills, and prefers to involve the reader at a more realistic pace. This is not to say that the book lacks excitement (even Billingham's enemies could hardly accuse him of that), but just that the tension is dispensed in a way that never seems meretricious. Another solid entry in the growing Tom Thorne canon.

--Barry Forshaw

Review:

Glenister conveys well the rising panic of the kidnapper, whose querulous protestations, though addressed to no one in particular, are certainly creepy... A long, meaty, good-value listen (Telegraph)

Gripping (Express)

The fashion in which Mark Billingham has climbed his way to the top of the British crime writing fraternity should cause no one any surprise. His secret (as his latest book, Buried, comprehensively proves) is simple: Billingham's work is always utterly reliable, delivering gritty and authoritative crime fiction writing in which the sense of locale is always spot-on. Here, DI Tom Thorne is asked to help in the case of a teenage boy who has disappeared. He is the son of a once high-ranking police officer (now retired), and Thorne's first endeavour is to ask the father, ex DCI-Mullen, to draw up a list of all those in his past who might have reason to hold a grudge. But then Thorne discovers that there is an omission from the list: a man who has made serious threats to Mullen and his family. And as Billingham's beleaguered hero strains every sinew to track down the boy before he is killed, he has to find out why his ex-police colleague has lied to him. (As so often before with Billingham, it's the steady accumulation of disturbing detail that makes this novel so compelling. The author eschews easy thrills, and prefers to involve the reader at a more realistic pace. This is not to say that the book lacks)

Barry Forshaw, AMAZON.CO.UK REVIEW ('With Buried we're plunged back into the dark side with a vengeance . . . Billingham's plotting is as taut as ever’)

About this edition

• Publisher: HarperCollins
• Publication date: 2007
• ISBN 10: 0061255696
• ISBN 13: 9780061255694
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 400