It's rare for a young woman to die from a stroke and when three such deaths occur in short order it starts to look like an epidemic. Then a sharp pathologist notices traces of benzodiazepine in one of the victim's blood samples and just traceable damage to the ligaments in her neck, and their cause of death is changed from 'natural' to murder.The police aren't making much progress in their hunt for the killer until he appears to make a mistake: Alison Willetts is found alive and D.I. Tom Thorne believes the murderer has made a mistake, which ought to allow them to get on his tracks. But it was the others who were his mistakes: he doesn't want to take life, he just wants to put people into a state where they cannot move, cannot talk, cannot do anything but think.When Thorne, helped by the neurologist looking after Alison, starts to realise what he is up against he knows the case is not going to be solved by normal methods - before he can find out who did it he has to understand why he's doing it.
**
From 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.
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.
From Library Journal
With this first work, Billingham has concocted an intense, creepy variation on the serial-killer theme this villain doesn't want to murder but instead tries to induce strokes that will lock his victims into a perpetual comatose state. His first three attempts fail (the victims die), but he finally succeeds with Alison Willetts, a young woman who ends up able to see, hear, and think but little else. The case falls to London detective Tom Thorne, a slightly tattered middle-aged cop who has seen too much death and finds his judgment clouded when he falls in love with Anne Coburn, Alison's doctor, while suspecting that Anne's best friend is the perpetrator. The strength of what could have been a standard medical/police procedural lies in its complex characters, serpentine plot twists, and dark ending. Fans of Michael Connolly's Harry Bosch and Colin Dexter's Inspector Morse will enjoy Thorne, another flawed protagonist haunted by his past. Already a best seller in Great Britain (and deservedly so), this is highly recommended for popular fiction collections. [A Literary Guild, Doubleday Book Club, and Mystery Guild featured alternate.] Rebecca House Stankowski, Purdue Univ. Calumet Lib., Hammond, I. - Rebecca House Stankowski, Purdue Univ. Calumet Lib., Hammond, IN
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.
Description:
It's rare for a young woman to die from a stroke and when three such deaths occur in short order it starts to look like an epidemic. Then a sharp pathologist notices traces of benzodiazepine in one of the victim's blood samples and just traceable damage to the ligaments in her neck, and their cause of death is changed from 'natural' to murder.The police aren't making much progress in their hunt for the killer until he appears to make a mistake: Alison Willetts is found alive and D.I. Tom Thorne believes the murderer has made a mistake, which ought to allow them to get on his tracks. But it was the others who were his mistakes: he doesn't want to take life, he just wants to put people into a state where they cannot move, cannot talk, cannot do anything but think.When Thorne, helped by the neurologist looking after Alison, starts to realise what he is up against he knows the case is not going to be solved by normal methods - before he can find out who did it he has to understand why he's doing it.
**
From 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.
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.
From Library Journal
With this first work, Billingham has concocted an intense, creepy variation on the serial-killer theme this villain doesn't want to murder but instead tries to induce strokes that will lock his victims into a perpetual comatose state. His first three attempts fail (the victims die), but he finally succeeds with Alison Willetts, a young woman who ends up able to see, hear, and think but little else. The case falls to London detective Tom Thorne, a slightly tattered middle-aged cop who has seen too much death and finds his judgment clouded when he falls in love with Anne Coburn, Alison's doctor, while suspecting that Anne's best friend is the perpetrator. The strength of what could have been a standard medical/police procedural lies in its complex characters, serpentine plot twists, and dark ending. Fans of Michael Connolly's Harry Bosch and Colin Dexter's Inspector Morse will enjoy Thorne, another flawed protagonist haunted by his past. Already a best seller in Great Britain (and deservedly so), this is highly recommended for popular fiction collections. [A Literary Guild, Doubleday Book Club, and Mystery Guild featured alternate.] Rebecca House Stankowski, Purdue Univ. Calumet Lib., Hammond, I.
- Rebecca House Stankowski, Purdue Univ. Calumet Lib., Hammond, IN
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.