Time of Death (Tom Thorne Novels)

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Despite hints to the contrary, the crime and the investigation are routine, and the killer is a cipher. What lingers in the memory is the group portrait of the Polesford locals brutally closing ranks against a man they’re certain deserves to die. This is more of a slow burn than the last instalment (which left me only slightly less traumatized than Tom & Phil). When Thorne's partner Helen goes home to support a childhood friend, he tags along. There's a serious criminal investigation underway involving the friend's husband & Tom has no jurisdiction. But every instinct tells him the local cops have the wrong guy & with nothing but time on his hands, he starts to nose around. The mystery and thriller genres are full of authors who write remarkable novels, but find that commercial success commensurate with their talents and efforts proves to be elusive. They certainly do well enough, and have a diehard and loyal fan base, but they aren’t household names. Then, after several efforts, they write a book that everyone talks about, and the degree of success that they have deserved all along is suddenly theirs.

When it's splashed all over the press that family man Stephen Bates has been arrested, Helen and her partner Tom Thorne head to the flooded town to support Bates' wife - an old school friend of Helen's - who is living under siege with two teenage children and convinced of her husband's innocence. She doesn't know who she is, or where she is, or how long she's been there. She knows only that, whatever is coming, she's ready for the end."When family man Stephen Bates has been arrested, Helen and her partner Tom Thorne head to the flooded town to support Bates' wife - an old school friend of Helen's - who is living under siege and convinced of her husband's innocence. As ever a pleasure to spend time in Thorne's company - the whole series definitely comes highly recommended from me. As she tries to reconcile the facts of her loss with her own doubts, Helen digs deeper into Manchester's criminal underworld, only to be hit with a betrayal she never saw coming.

This was an odd one - I have read most of the preceding DCI Thorne novels, and have (mainly) enjoyed them very much, but this felt a little less enjoyable than I remember the others. Perhaps this far into a series Mark Billingham is keen not to just repeat the same London-based police procedural themes which earlier books have had, and perhaps he knows many of his readers have invested in his characters... but for me this had a little too much 'soap opera' and a slightly contrived setting. Mark Billingham performs this book and how. I was gripped from the beginning, I was up all last night feeling emotionally wrenched around by the rollercoaster ending. I read and listen to so many thrillers that I'm amazed that I didn't see plot twists coming - I don't know if that was due to me be being so emotionally caught up in a harrowing story that seemed all to real. The pace and switching of narrative voices seemed just right to me - I wanted to know what was going on with each set of people and was worried about the other characters who were out of the action in the moment. Helen feels duty-bound to divert their vacation to the scene of the crime, a dreary village where people tend to leave rather than stay. The reason for Helen’s sudden feelings of duty is somewhat of a mystery, given that she has avoided returning to Polesford for decades and has hardly stayed in touch with Linda or anyone else from there. Thorne senses that there is more going on with Helen than meets the eye but is loathe to pry, particularly because of the manner in which she closes up when the conversation moves anywhere toward the past. Billingham is always spot on, but TIME OF DEATH is pitch-perfect, evenly balanced between plot and character. You won’t be able to read it without wondering why all books can’t be this good."The Daily Telegraph 's Michael Hogan gave the first episode three stars out of five, noting that: " In the Dark did show promise and could yet come good. It was taut and tensely atmospheric with an intriguing premise which found its heroine caught in the middle between police and prime suspect." [10] Then Helen hears of the arrest of Stephen Bates for the disappearance of two young girl. Bates happens to be Helen's best friend from high school, Linda. Although Helen has not even returned to her home town, Dorbrook, to see her best friend in twenty years, she decides that she must abandon her holiday plans immediately and rush to Linda's aid.

Despite having no official roll to play, Thorne investigates on his own and becomes convinced that, despite overwhelming evidence of his guilt, the police have got the wrong man. There is still an extremely clever and killer on the loose and a missing girl who Thorne believes might still be alive.In the small town of Polesford, Helen tries to re-establish some kind of rapport with someone she hasn’t seen for half a lifetime. Thorne, meanwhile, is drawn into the incident room where the disappearance of the two local teenage girls is being investigated. It doesn’t take him too long to outstay his welcome, particularly when he queries the conclusions that the local force jump to when a decomposing body is found in woodland – an area well frequented by dog-walkers. I do love crimes that are set in small communities, there is something very distinctive about the way they operate, with everyone knowing so much about each other’s lives, the suspicion of outsiders, the gossip and the protection and tolerance of their own, up to a point. That line is drawn when two girls go missing and Linda’s husband is taken in for questioning based upon some strong evidence and the race is on to find the missing girls. Meanwhile, a teenage girl is held captive in a small room, knowing that her death is approaching, even as a person close to Thorne’s investigation unwittingly holds the key to her whereabouts. Thorne obtains some unexpected but very welcome help from an unlikely source, and slowly closes in on the remaining missing girl and the killer. Time, however, is running out. As residents and media bay for Bates' blood, a decomposing body is found. The police believe they have their murderer, but one man believes otherwise. With a girl still missing, Helen sets herself on a collision course with local police, townsfolk - and a merciless killer. An engrossing read, and although this is #13 in a series, it is well able to be read as a stand alone.

This is Mark Billingham's 13th book in the Tom Thorne series. It is a good book that holds the readers' attention and keeps them reading. I enjoyed the book. It begins with Thorne and Helen are just getting away for a holiday. guilt. Helen spends a lot of time with Linda helping to support her as the suspect’s wife and I quite liked this angle, which is not one that we often come across in this type of read. This book is a little different to the previous Billingham books I've read as Thorne and Weeks are not on their own turf so it's more about Weeks relationship with the suspects partner and Thorne doing his own off-the-record investigation. I thought I had it sussed half way through but it shows how good Billingham is as a writer to lead me down that path whilst still dropping the little clues to the true perpetrator's identity. Forget about solving all these crimes; the signal triumph here is (spoiler) the heroine’s survival. I read the first few books in the Tom Thorne series but lost touch with the series several years ago. While there is clearly a running story arc over Tom's relationship with Helen, this book works perfectly well as a standalone. Past cases are referred to but not in a way that affects the understanding of the plot of this book.

For me, Mark Billingham is that author, and his newly published TIME OF DEATH may be that book. Billingham has seemed to be incapable of writing any way but wonderfully since SLEEPYHEAD, his first Tom Thorne novel published in 2002. While Billingham is well-known in his native England, his following in the United States is somewhat smaller, though certainly no less loyal. TIME OF DEATH is a quantum jump up from his other, excellent work, including the spellbinding THE BONES BENEATH, which was released in 2014 and should be the book that gains Billingham the recognition he deserves on this side of the ocean. Jessica Gunning as DC Sophie Carson, the North Derbyshire Police officer on the field in the abduction case. [5] Time of Death sees Thorne and Weeks setting off on a romantic break to the Cotswolds only for Weeks to see the partner of her best friend from school being arrested for the abduction of two teenage girls.Weeks wants to return to her childhood home to support her former best friend and drags Thorne along. Ever the policeman, Thorne feels something's amiss and makes a nuisance of himself with the investigation team. But they don't want help from the big metropolitan detective.