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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.
From Publishers Weekly
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
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Most helpful customer reviews
4.0 out of 5 stars
Thorne in Your Side,
By
This review is from: Scaredy Cat (Paperback)
Mark Billingham is a former actor and stand-up comedian whose first crime novel - "Sleepyhead" - was published in 2001. "Scaredy Cat" is his second novel and, like his first, also features DI Tom Thorne as its central character. It won the 2003 Sherlock Award, and was also nominated for the CWA Golden Dagger Award. In 2005, he won the Theakston's Old Peculiar Crime Novel of the Year Award for "Lazy Bones".Thorne is a member of London's Metropolitan Police and works with the Serious Crime Group - officially, they investigate crimes that don't quite 'fit' anywhere else. Known to some as 'The Weeble', he's stubborn, can be a little tactless and doesn't always play by the rules. Thorne is also divorced - he currently lives alone, is having trouble with his dad and doesn't socialise a great deal. Occasionally, he will take in a football game and a few beers with Phil Hendricks, the team's pathologist. Hendricks, it has to be said, isn't quite Quincy : he has plenty of piercings (one for each ex-boyfriend), is shaven-headed and certainly appears to be the best friend Thorne has. (As this is the first book by Billingham I've read, I have no idea what part - if any - Hendricks played in Thorne's divorce). The two officers Thorne works most closely with are Sarah McEvoy and Dave Holland. Holland, despite having a girlfriend called Sophie, has taken a serious interest in both his career and in McEvoy. McEvoy, on the other hand, has taken quite an interest in <ahem> 'someone' called 'Charlie'. The team has been assigned to a suspected serial killer. Two women have been killed in remarkably similar circumstances. One, a single mother called Carol Garner, was strangled at home in front of her three-year old son. She had just returned from visiting her parents in Birmingham and it's believed the killer followed her from Euston Station. The other, Ruth Murray, was found on a street just behind King's Cross Station. However, a close examination reveals some strange differences between the two victims. When the details of two unsolved stabbings about six months previously are added, it becomes clear the team have two serial killers working together. The identities of the two killers - Dave Palmer and Stuart Nicklin - are revealed very early in the book. It's clear, however, that Nicklin has always been the one very much in control - he plans the killings and has somehow manipulated Palmer into taking part. We only gradually learn of their past and the importance of a girl called Karen to both of them. Overall, I enjoyed this book quite a bit - it was very easily read and Thorne reminded me a little of Harry Bosch, Michael Connelly's LAPD investigator. However, the mood in "Scaredy Cat" seems a little lighter than in anything I've read by Connelly. I would possibly suggest reading Billingham's books in order - there were a few nods to the events of "Sleepyhead", the first book to feature Thorne. While I haven't read it just yet - though I do plan to - I have the impression that Billingham gave away a little more about that book than I would've liked. Recommended all the same.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta) Amazon.com:
4.0 out of 5 stars (24 customer reviews) 7 of 7 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
an intense mystery,
By Pangloss "soldierblue" - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: Scaredy Cat (Hardcover)
This is my first book by author Billingham and I am quite impressed. The plot twists around a pair of serial killers, intertwining the lives of DI Thorne and his crew of investigators. The final unveiling of the killer was quite a surprise, as I had guessed a different character to be the villain. The second half of the book really picks up speed and is hard to put down. You don't want to stop until the killer's identity is uncovered and hopefully he is caught. Intriguing characters, fast moving plot; I highly recommend it.
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful
3.0 out of 5 stars
Not as good as his first...,
By Thomas Duff "Duffbert" - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: Scaredy Cat (Hardcover)
Getting out of the tech genre for awhile, I relaxed with Mark Billingham's Scaredy Cat. This is his follow-up to Sleepyhead (that I really liked)...A number of killings in England has Tom Thorne looking for a serial killer. The victims are found in pairs, and although the methods are similar, the intensity of the violence is different. He figures there are actually a pair of killers working in tandem. The pair of killers go back to a grammar school friendship, and it's the typical controller/controllee type relationship. The cops quickly get one of the killers, but then try to set a trap for the other one. Unfortunately, the trap backfires and the killer starts to strike closer to home. The question becomes can he be stopped before he kills someone close to Thorne. As I mentioned above, I really liked Sleepyhead. Very dark, and hard to tell who was guilty and who was innocent. Scaredy Cat was just as dark, but the suspense wasn't there. You find out right away who the killers are, but you're not quite sure about the current identity of the controlling personality. The relationship between the killers is rather complex and somewhat ill-explained, and one of the common elements that tie them together is left to hang out there for far too long. When it's finally revealed, it doesn't seem to have the impact that it was probably intended to. Thorne's personal torments don't seem to do anything but sit there. The relationship between his partner Holland and a female cop with issues also doesn't seem to add anything to the storyline. Maybe it's just the sophomore jinx, but this novel definitely isn't on par with his first... 3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
Mark Billingham proves he's a "must-read" author,
By Bookreporter - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: Scaredy Cat (Hardcover)
Mark Billingham is a standup comic. I am unfamiliar with his stage work, and perhaps it's just as well, as I would have come to SCAREDY CAT (and, for that matter, his debut novel SLEEPYHEAD) with some preconceived notion that it would be at least quasi-comedic, that Billingham would possibly be a British Donald Westlake. For all I know, Billingham may be the funniest man on the planet, but you couldn't prove it with SCAREDY CAT.SCAREDY CAT is an almost unrelievedly grim police procedural, though the setting is not a fictionalized New York City but rather modern-day London. The novel focuses on a series of murders being investigated by Team 3 of the unimaginatively named Serious Crime Group (West) of the Met, London Metropolitan Police. Detective Inspector Tom Thorne, introduced in SLEEPYHEAD, is back, and Billingham continues his slow and methodical sketching of Thorne's personality. Thorne may well be one of the most quietly complex characters in modern detective fiction; just when the reader thinks he or she has a handle on him, there is a twist or a turn, and suddenly one's opinion, one's conception, needs revision. Thorne is no genius, and he knows it. This is important; he is able to admit mistakes and to turn, albeit grudgingly, on a dime to correct them, even as he is weighed down by regret. Ah, and the series of murders. Two women are murdered in London, some distance apart, with enough similarities to convince the police that they are, at least initially, the work of the same person. The murders resemble a pair of killings that occurred several months previously in which two other women were killed on the same day, apparently at the same time. Thorne comes to the conclusion that the two pairs of killings are linked, and that there is not one killer, but two, working in tandem with each other. He is horrified to further realize that, every time one body is found, there will be another waiting to be discovered. And while the methods of the murders may be the same, the killers themselves, it seems, are very, very different. As the reader follows Thorne and his team (a group of extremely interesting individuals, to say the least) through their investigation, Billingham describes the intricacies of the investigators, the murderers and the survivors, the relatives of the victims left behind in death's wake. And while the identity of one of the murderers is revealed relatively early, the other is not revealed to either Thorne or the reader until the very end. The result is a novel with such skilled pacing that it is almost excruciatingly painful to read it without finishing it in one sitting. Yet it is simultaneously a novel of such simple craft, such intelligence, that one wants to savor it slowly. The result is an interesting dichotomy that few writers are able to achieve. It is not necessary to read SLEEPYHEAD prior to reading SCAREDY CAT, though a reader introduced to one will inevitably be drawn to the other. Billingham, with only two novels, has become a writer who will undoubtedly be added to many "must-read" lists. Oh, one other thing about SCAREDY CAT: this book has perhaps the saddest Epilogue I have ever read. Don't skip ahead --- you won't really get it unless you read the whole book. And you'll definitely want to read the whole book. --- Reviewed by Joe Hartlaub |
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