The fashion in which Mark Billingham has climbed his way to the top of the British crime writing fraternity should cause no one any surprise. His secret (as his latest book, Buried, comprehensively proves) is simple: Billingham's work is always utterly reliable, delivering gritty and authoritative crime fiction writing in which the sense of locale is always spot-on.

Here, DI Tom Thorne is asked to help in the case of a teenage boy who has disappeared. He is the son of a once high-ranking police officer (now retired), and Thorne?s first endeavour is to ask the father, ex DCI-Mullen, to draw up a list of all those in his past who might have reason to hold a grudge. But then Thorne discovers that there is an omission from the list: a man who has made serious threats to Mullen and his family. And as Billingham's beleaguered hero strains every sinew to track down the boy before he is killed, he has to find out why his ex-police colleague has lied to him.

As so often before with Billingham, it's the steady accumulation of disturbing detail that makes this novel so compelling. The author eschews easy thrills, and prefers to involve the reader at a more realistic pace. This is not to say that the book lacks excitement (even Billingham's enemies could hardly accuse him of that), but just that the tension is dispensed in a way that never seems meretricious. Another solid entry in the growing Tom Thorne canon.

--Barry Forshaw

2008-09-29 Too slow

I found this a slog and contemplated giving it up but persevered purely because I already have the next book in the series and didn't want to miss any links that might trace back to this book.
The kidnapping at the beginning had promise but Thorne plods about asking questions at the school etc. picking up on a possible suspect for a previously unsolved crime which was an interesting storyline, but I never felt that there was any sense of urgency to find Luke.
I really feel that it could have been less drawn out and maybe 100 or so pages less would have made all the difference. About two thirds through the story picks up pace but as most people would have put the book in the charity shop pile by then, it's a bit late.

In Billingham's previous books (Scaredy Cat, Lazybones, Sleepyhead and even Lifeless) Tom Thorne was far more interesting than in this book. I just couldn't relate to him in this one...and I'm really finding the constant references to his fathers death in both this book and 'Lifeless' tedious now. Yes we get the message he misses his dad, he feels guilty and traumatised but enough already!

I like my hero's to be flawed but not boring.