Amazon.co.uk Review
Mark Billingham's
Scaredy Cat is as inventive his previous serial killer novel a
Sleepyhead. Detective Inspector Tom Thorne has the job of watching out for patterns and thinks he spots one--two similar killings on the same day; women followed from a mainline station and then strangled. Rapidly, though, it becomes clear that the methods differed in all sorts of ways--one killing was controlled, the other frenzied--and the timings do not work out. On a hunch, Thorne checks for other such pairings and finds them--this time two killers are working as a team, one setting the other challenges.
We know what Thorne does not, that all of this has to do with things that happened at school years ago; we also know a lot more than Thorne about the demons that drive some of his own investigating team. Billingham sets himself some complicated technical challenges here--flashes back and forwards, and closeups of killers' minds that keep crucial information from us--and some of the complications don't quite work. Overall, though, this is a terrifying exploration of brutal madness, made all the more so by touches of compassion for the killer's victims--the killer may think this a game, but we and Thorne know it is not.--Roz Kaveney
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Review
'Murder and mystery do not come better than this.' WHAT'S ON IN LONDON 'Brisk, racy read.' THE TIMES 'Assured and shocking thriller.' GUARDIAN 'A cunning variation on the serial-murer theme.' SUNDAY TELEGRAPH 'Scary, pell-mell, cliff-hanging thriller.' LITERARY REVIEW 'Bleakly gripping.' SUNDAY MIRROR 'What's most impressive is the author's coupling of the dry, detached analysis of the crime scenes with the charged passages from the viewpoint of the killer(s). Absorbingly unpleasant.' CRIME TIME 'I bet you won't put it down before the last page.' BIG ISSUE 'Billingham has a smooth, unobtrusive style that keeps the pages turning.' MAIL ON SUNDAY 'The piecemeal nature of Billingham's storytelling builds the tension superbly and he manages to sustain it satisfactorily, even when the reader realises what is happening. In other words he keeps you reading.' SUNDAY TRIBUNE 'Unputdownable.' TIME OUT 'Mark Billingham's Scaredy Cat is as inventive his previous serial killer novel a Sleepyhead. Detective Inspector Tom Thorne has the job of watching out for patterns and thinks he spots one--two similar killings on the same day; women followed from a mainline station and then strangled. Rapidly, though, it becomes clear that the methods differed in all sorts of ways--one killing was controlled, the other frenzied--and the timings do not work out. On a hunch, Thorne checks for other such pairings and finds them--this time two killers are working as a team, one setting the other challenges. We know what Thorne does not, that all of this has to do with things that happened at school years ago; we also know a lot more than Thorne about the demons that drive some of his own investigating team. Billingham sets himself some complicated technical challenges here--flashes back and forwards, and closeups of killers' minds that keep crucial information from us--and some of the complications don't quite work. Overall, though, this is a terrifying exploration of brutal madness, made all the more so by touches of compassion for the killer's victims--the killer may think this a game, but we and Thorne know it is not.' - Roz Kaveney, AMAZON.CO.UK REVIEW 'Mark Billingham is the new-wave leader...' LEE CHILD
by Mark Billingham
by Mark Billingham
by Mark Billingham
by Mark Billingham
by Mark Billingham
