Time of Death
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- USD 19.99
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- USD 19.99
Publisher Description
Two British police detectives take on a case close to home: "One of the most consistently entertaining, insightful crime writers working today" (Gillian Flynn).
One of Entertainment Weekly's "10 Great Summer Thrillers"
Tom Thorne is on holiday with his girlfriend, DS Helen Weeks, when two girls are abducted in Helen's hometown in Warwickshire. When a body is discovered and a man is arrested, Helen recognizes the suspect's wife as an old school friend, and reluctantly returns home for the first time in twenty-five years to lend her support.
As his partner faces up to a past she has tried desperately to forget and a media storm engulfs the town, Thorne becomes convinced that, despite overwhelming evidence of his guilt, the police have got the wrong man. There is still an extremely clever killer on the loose—and a missing girl who Thorne believes might still be alive . . .
"Some ingenious forensic footwork. What is most impressive about the novel, however, is the astute observation of the beleaguered Bates family, who turn in on themselves as the inhabitants of the town turn on them." —The Guardian
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
At the outset of Billingham's slow-burning 13th Tom Thorne novel (after 2014's The Bones Beneath), the detective inspector's girlfriend, Det. Sgt. Helen Weeks, persuades him to abandon their original holiday plans and head instead to Polesford, the small Warwickshire village where she grew up, after she recognizes a childhood friend, Linda Bates, on the news as the wife of a man accused of abducting two teenage girls. Even though she hasn't seen Linda for decades, Helen feels a strange pull to help her old friend, and Thorne always relishes a new case. It's been three weeks since Jessica Toms disappeared and two days since Poppy Johnston vanished both appear to have accepted rides from Linda's husband. Despite the husband's claims of innocence, evidence mounts against him, including traces of DNA that place Jessica in his car. Thorne takes a backseat role as he assists Helen in what becomes a deeply personal investigation that builds to a surprising and satisfying climax.
