Buried: 6 (Tom Thorne) - Softcover

Billingham, Mark

Softcover

ISBN 10: 006125701X ISBN 13: 9780061257018

Publisher: Harper, 2008

Synopsis

Luke Mullen, the missing teenage son of a former police officer, was last seen getting into a car with an older woman. No one knows whether he went willingly or was abducted, whether he's living or dead.

Then the videotape arrives . . .

On special assignment, Detective Inspector Tom Thorne is in charge of the investigation into Luke's disappearance. But it's the information that Tony Mullen, the boy's father, is not freely sharing that Thorne finds particularly disturbing--like the names of dangerous criminals who have openly threatened the tough ex-detective and his entire family. Something shocking and deadly may well be buried deep in old cases and past lives. But Thorne knows he doesn't have the luxury of time to dig--especially when a kidnapper brutally demonstrates that he is willing to kill.

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: Harper
• Publication date: 2008
• ISBN 10: 006125701X
• ISBN 13: 9780061257018
• Binding: Mass Market Paperback
• Number of pages: 448