Good As Dead by Mark Billingham

 

Not to be confused with Mark Billingham’s last book, From The Dead, this latest offering is a solid police procedural. In fact, there’s really quite a lot of procedure involved, as this is a British crime novel, and D.I. Tom Thorne is not Dirty Harry. It starts with a clever bait and switch, as we follow a police officer, Helen Weeks, as she goes about her day, but then just as she’s buying chocolate in the morning, a gang of teens come in to the newsagents. However, the shopkeeper chases them off – and then he takes officer Weeks hostage. The point of this is to force Thorne into investigating his son’s death, in prison. This is naturally a tricky situation, and that makes hard work for Thorne, and interesting reading for us. Billingham’s done his research, and the book does ring true – perhaps too true, because sometimes the specific details of policework could have been glossed over, to better serve the pacing. Nonetheless, this is a good read throughout, and one with plenty of unexpected developments that convincingly stem from human failings – leading to a conclusion that really does differ from the norm. [Nat Smith]