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Mark Billingham
Lifeless
Published June 2005 by Little Brown at £14.99
ISBN: 0316727520
To his friends, his foes and even to himself it looks as though Tom Thorne's career is on the skids. On his last case he had seriously over-stepped the mark, and now gardening leave has been suggested and all he has to tend is a window box. So when it appears someone is targeting London's homeless community it seems pefectly natural for Thorne to take a step nearer to the gutter and go undercover amongst them. He blends into the sometimes invisble community easily - too easily perhaps - but the information he gleans quickly proves that this is no random killer, it is someone with a very distinct purpose and a very specific list of victims, only the team supporting Thorne from the outside don't have the key to motive or identity. Then somehow the fact that a policeman is working under cover becomes public knowledge … With acute observation of character and place, combined with his acknowledged mastery of plotting, Lifeless raises the Thorne series to an even higher level.
Mark Billingham is a stand-up comedian, appearing regularly at the Comedy Store. He has been awarded the 2003 Sherlock Award as the creator of the 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.
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Christopher Brookmyre
All Fun and Games Until Somebody Loses an Eye
Published May 2005 by Little Brown at £12.99
ISBN: 0316725234
As a teenager Jane Bell had dreamt of playing in the casinos of Monte Carlo in the company of James Bond, but in her punk phase she'd got herself pregnant and by the time she reaches forty-six she's a grandmother, her dreams as dry as the dust her Dyson sucks up from her hall carpet every day. Then her son Ross, a researcher working for an arms manufacturer in Switzerland, is forced to disappear before some characters cut from the same cloth as Blofeld persuade him to part with the secrets of his research. But they are not the only ones desperate to locate him. A team of security experts is hired by Ross's firm: headed by the enigmatic Bett, his staff have little in common apart from total professionalism and a thorough disregard for the law. Bett believes the key to Ross's whereabouts is his mother, and in one respect he is right, but even he is taken aback by the verve underlying her determination to secure her son's safety as she learns the black arts of quiet subterfuge and violent attack. The teenage dreams of fast cars, high-tech firepower and extreme action had always promised to be fun and games, but in real life it's likely someone is going to lose an eye ...
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Michael Robotham
Lost
Published May 2005 by Little Brown at £12.99
ISBN: 0316725536
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Roslund A & Hellstrom B
The Beast
Published May 2005 by Little Brown at £14.99
ISBN: 0316729477
See Review by
Bob Cornwell
Two children are found dead in a basement. Four years later their murderer escapes from prison. The police know if he is not found quickly, he will kill again. But when their worst fears come true and another child is murdered in the nearby town of Strengnas, the situation spirals out of control. In an atmosphere of hysteria whipped up by the media, Fredrik Steffansson, the father of the murdered child, decides he must take revenge. His actions will have devastating consequences. As anger spreads across the whole country, the two detectives assigned to the case - Ewert Grens and Sven Sunkist - find themselves caught up in a situation of escalating violence. A powerful and highly suspenseful thriller that has been likened to both Hitchcock and le Carre,
The Beast is also a sophisticated and thought-provoking novel about what happens when we take the law into our own hands.