Buried (Tom Thorne Novels)
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Amazon.co.uk 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
Herald
`With BURIED we're plunged back into the dark side with a
vengeance . . . Billingham's plotting is as taut as ever'
vengeance . . . Billingham's plotting is as taut as ever'
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Another Case for DI Thorne,
By
This review is from: Buried: The Tom Thorne Novels: Book Six (Paperback)
Mark Billingham was born and brought up in Birmingham. Having worked for some years as an actor and more recently as a TV writer and stand-up comedian his first crime novel was published in 2001. Though still occasionally working as a stand-up comic, Mark now concentrates on writing the series of crime novels featuring London-based detective Tom Thorne. Mark lives in North London with his wife and two children. For any new readers who have not read any of the DI Thorne books, you are missing a real treat. Start reading them now, I am sure you will not be disappointed. Buried is the sixth book in the Tom Thorne series and they have all been equally good. It is not always easy for an author to maintain the high standard they have set themselves with previous books and even the best of them have the odd bad novel, but Mark Billingham seems to have been able to maintain a high standard with all of his offerings and long may that continue. A sixteen-year-old boy has disappeared and the obvious conclusion must be that he has been kidnapped. Luke Mullen, to make matters worse is the son of a former high-ranking police officer. While no one is prepared to take the final step and say outright that the boy must be dead. Detective Inspector Thorne is brought on to the squad of officers dedicated to locating Luke. The first and most obvious thing to do is identify and locate anyone who may have had a grudge against his father, a man who incarcerated a lot of villains in his years as a police officer. This case is going to be complicated and it is going to take time to sift through the suspects. Unfortunately time is the one commodity they have not got . . .
21 of 25 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
BURIED : TREASURE,
By
This review is from: Buried (Hardcover)
A teenage boy goes missing - the son of a former police officer who might have had some enemies with scores to settle.
This is Mark Billingham's sixth and latest novel featuring London-based DI Tom Thorne, and in my considered opinion, it's also the best yet. You may have heard the saying that it's better to see an average film with a great script than a great film with a bad script. In a way, BURIED is an example of why it's better to read a well-written book with a so-so story line than an interesting story that's been poorly written. I have a feeling that some of the criticism that this novel has received has been a result of its less than sensational plot and story-line; some people possibly expected another serial killer tale (which this is not) with dead bodies discovered every other chapter. No, BURIED is a more intelligent story, a more realistic one if anything, and as someone who has read all of the authors five previous novels I would suggest that he has put the greatest amount of thought and research into this latest story even if it lacks some of the bells and whistles that some of Mark's fans might have expected. A great deal of care and planning has gone into the structure of every single page, and with regard to the bigger picture of the entire book, it is a considerably more multi-layered piece of work than Lifeless, for example, which only had me thinking in one direction throughout. The only weakness of BURIED was its ending, which of course I cannot really describe here but in this regard it bears comparison with several books I have read this year which had endings that failed to live up to the promises created earlier. With less than 100 pages to go I was enjoying this book enormously and eagerly looking forward to giving it the highest of accolades here on Amazon, but to my (slight) frustration it didn't quite deliver the knockout punch that I felt it could have. I have still given it the full 5 stars though, because the first 300+ pages deserved it on their own. Perhaps the key message for me is that Mark Billingham is back at his best after something of a dip in his performance, he's definitely a better writer than he ever has been and if he can come up with a smash-hit story-line for the next in the Thorne series, then he will have a major success on his hands. He has now proved that he has genuine depth of ability in his writing structure, and we know he has great imagination thanks to his debut novel Sleepyhead; if he can combine those two rare skills in one book next time round then we are all in for a real treat.
11 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Buried..,
By
This review is from: Buried (Hardcover)
This book sees Mark Billingham return to the winning ways of his first few novels after the poorer performance of `burning girl' and `lifeless' in the `thrilling' department. Buried still doesn't have him at his best but he's certainly heading in right direction for another winner.
This book has a reasonable amount of twists and turns to keep you guessing especially since there is more than one case and several threads to even the main one allowing for them to all come together in the final climax. It isn't the most thrilling book I've ever read and if I'm honest my heart rate never increased by much at any particular point in the book. It's still a good read though and like I said its Mr Billingham returning to his prime.
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