The Burning Girl-Mark Billingham ****/*

X marks the spot- and when that spot is a corpse's naked back and the X is carved in vlood, DI Tom Thorne is in no doubt that the dead man is the latest victim of a particularly vicious contract-killer. This is a turf warfare between North London gangs. Organised-crime boss Billy Ryan is moving into someone else's patch, and that someone is not best pleased. For Thorne, a tenuous link between two cases becomes two pieces of the same puzzle; past and present fuse together to form a new and very nasty riddle.

And when an X is carved on Thorne's front door, he knows that the smouldering embers of a long dead case are about to erupt into flames...."

Worst blurb in the world. Does it's job, but has the story all turned around. Utter bollocks.

That aside.... Brilliant book. Loved it. Would have been a five star but in retrospect there are a few loose ends I can't remember them tying up actually. I thought it was great however and raced through it in the couple of days since the Long Weekend (reading in the peak hour traffic hehehe). Highly recommend (the book that is-not the traffic) :)

I've read several others of Mark Billingham's and DI Tom Thorne is an oldie but a goodie. A very traditional Cop character in a British sense, and the other characters have good sub plots happening which keeps you coming back. I like reading a book and simply slipping into the characters, not being bludgeoned with the background info (see Baby Sitters Club-1st chapter of every single book). It sort of lost steam toward the end, but I was still really keen on finishing it.

4.5/5