The Burning Girl: The Tom Thorne Novels: Book Four [Paperback]

With The Burning Girl, Mark Billingham steps away from the inventively vicious serial killers of his earlier thrillers to have his police detective Thorne investigate something equally unpleasant--the men who kill for money not kicks and the gangsters who ruthlessly employ them. Thorne's retired friend Carol put Rooker away years ago for setting fire to a girl--whom he mistakenly believed to be the daughter of gang-boss Kelly; the girl did not die, then, but wished she had. Now someone is ringing Carol, saying it was them that burned the girl, and Rooker is promising to tell the truth; Ryan, Alison Kelly's ex-husband and her father's chosen successor, is caught up in gang warfare with a new North London Turkish mafia. As always, Billingham delivers psychological insights you half wish you didn't have, along with a profound sense of just how far the damaged Thorne will go in the name of justice. Anyone who knows North London will recognise this as being as atmospheric as it is moody--Billingham continues to develop from book to book. --Roz Kaveney --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

A disturbing and ruthlessly compelling novel (SUNDAY EXPRESS )

Murder and mystery do not come better than this. (WHAT'S ON IN LONDON )

Brisk, racy read. (THE TIMES )

Assured and shocking thriller. (GUARDIAN )

'The Burning Girl is a ruthlessly compelling novel.'

The fourth D.I. Thorne novel from the bestselling author of SLEEPYHEAD, SCAREDY CAT and LAZY BONES, in which a 20-year-old turf war between London gangs threatens to ignite again.

Jessica Clarke had been set alight twenty years ago. Her attacker, quickly tracked down and eager to confess, was still in jail, his career as a hitman for North London gangs now well behind him. So who is harassing Carol Chamberlain, the arresting officer in that case, and claiming that he is the one who burned the girl? Now retired, Carol turns to DI Tom Thorne for help. He's up to his neck in an investigation into a series of killings, which appears to be the result of a turf war between rival gangs, and he's fed up to the gills with reporting to DCI Tughan, so helping Carol out looks like a good deed in a naughty world. Only the world is about to turn much nastier, so nasty in fact that he finds himself longing for a straightforward psycopath to hunt down. In Mark Billingham's fourth novel, he explores the effects of violence and greed on the lives of those who exploit their fellow beings in a novel of exceptional power.

A MAN WHO KILLS FOR MONEY X marks the spot - and when that spot is a corpse's naked back and the X is carved in blood, DI Tom Thorne is in no doubt that the dead man is the latest victim of a particularly vicious killer. A BRUTAL VENDETTA This is brutal 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. A COP WHO IS PLAYING WITH FIRE And when an X is carved on DI Tom Thorne's front door, he knows the smouldering embers of this case are about to erupt into flames... 'DI Thorne is a wonderful creation' Karin Slaughter --This text refers to the Perfect Paperback edition.

Mark Billingham is a stand-up comedian. He has been awarded the 2003 Sherlock Award for Best Detective created by a British writer. He has also written drama for children's television, including Knight School which won the Royal Television Society Award for best children's drama.