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.
