Scaredy Cat
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4.3 • 127 Ratings
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- £4.99
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- £4.99
Publisher Description
The second book in the Tom Thorne series from bestselling author Mark Billingham, Scaredy Cat is a gripping, chilling tour-de-force; a book to keep you reading until deep into the night.
'Assured and shocking' Guardian
It was a vicious, calculated murder. The killer selected his victim at Euston station, followed her home on the tube, strangled her to death in front of her child. At the same time, killed in the same way, a second body is discovered at the back of King's Cross station. And this grisly event eerily echoes the murder of two other women, stabbed to death months before on the same day.
It is DI Tom Thorne who sees the link and comes to the horrifying conclusion. This is not a serial killer the police are up against.
This is two of them - and two killers are way more deadly than one . . .
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Read what everyone's saying about the heart-racing Tom Thorne series:
'Literary superstar' Mail on Sunday
'Ingenious' Guardian
'Ground-breaking' Sunday Times
'Mark Billingham gets better and better' Michael Connelly
'A cracking read . . . I couldn't put it down!' Shari Lapena
'A damn fine storyteller' Karin Slaughter
'Twisted and twisty' Linwood Barclay
'One of the most consistently entertaining, insightful crime writers working today' Gillian Flynn
'The next superstar detective is already with us. Don't miss him' Lee Child
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In a variation on the serial killer theme, newcomer Billingham's villain doesn't want to actually kill his victims (those who do die he considers "mistakes") so much as induce massive strokes that will leave them cerebrally conscious while otherwise in a completely comatose state known as "locked-in syndrome." Combining elements of both police and medical procedural thriller, the novel follows frayed, middle-aged London detective inspector Tom Thorne as he chases down a series of red herrings, gradually becoming more and more obsessed with the killer's "masterpiece," 24-year-old Alison Willetts, and the seductive doctor, Anne Coburn, who cares for her. This romantic subplot becomes entwined with the main plot as Anne's colleague and paramour, Dr. Jeremy Bishop (whose amusement with Thorne's growing infatuation with Anne reveals a particular sort of passive-aggressive sadism), fuels Thorne's rising suspicion of him with verbal jousts. Billingham, a TV writer and stand-up comic, manifests a competent enough hand with plotting and dialogue, particularly at romantic moments ("Now, this carpet has unhappy memories and I'm still not hundred percent sure I've got the smell of vomit out of it..." "You smooth-talking bastard"). Overall, he displays a solid grasp of the form, though not at the gut-wrenching level of such peers as Mo Hayder. Billingham excels in characterization, however, and it's likely that readers will develop empathy for his conflicted protagonist and the compassionate physician who takes justice into her own hands.
Customer Reviews
Scardey Cat
This is the best detective story I've read in ages. A truly gripping plot with strong characters . I was totally engrossed and read the complete novel in two days. Thorne is equally as captivating as Morse, who in his day was undoubtedly the best, but who as now been replaced by Thorne for the 21st century. Billinghams knows how to get to ones gut, to bring a story to life and captures the evil perpetrated in modern times. (Although this is fiction, sadly these disturbing things do occur)
Billinghams research must be painstaking, but we, the reader, benefit from the accuracy and detail. Try Sleepyheads or The Dying Hours if you want to be entertained.
Great books
All the books written by Mark Billingham are excellent. I can't recommend them highly enough.