The Bones Beneath

March 17, 2014
In Billingham’s chilling 12th novel featuring Det. Insp. Tom Thorne (after 2013’s The Dying Hours), serial killer Stuart Nicklin offers to lead the police to the remains of one of his first victims—a 15-year-old boy who vanished 25 years ago while both Nicklin and the teen resided in a therapeutic community for youthful offenders on remote Bardsey Island, off the Welsh coast. But the offer comes with several conditions; in particular, Nicklin wants his nemesis, Thorne, who captured him five years earlier, to head the expedition and another convicted murderer, Jeffrey Batchelor, to accompany them, on the pretext of protecting Nicklin from retaliation for the female officer killed during his arrest. Astonishingly, the authorities agree, setting in motion a meticulously plotted chain of events far more disastrous than the detective fears. Though newcomers may find both Thorne’s opaqueness and the occasional misdirection a tad off-putting, Billingham certainly knows how to make those pages turn even while your stomach churns. Agent: Sarah Lutyens, Lutyens & Rubinstein Literary Agency (U.K.).

June 1, 2014
Detective Inspector Tom Thorne is, as usual, put out. Infamous serial killer Stuart Nicklin is once again playing mind games, claiming he will lead police to the corpse of a 15-year-old boy he murdered when they were both in an experimental program for adolescent offenders on remote Bardsey Island, located off the Welsh coast. What's more, Nicklin will only do so if Thorne accompanies him; Nicklin also requests that fellow prisoner Jeffrey Batchelor, a former college professor incapacitated by depression over his crime and the brutality of prison life, be present to ward off any police brutality, since Nicklin murdered a police officer when he was arrested. Thorne is right to be suspicious. Inhospitable conditions and inclement weather, along with Nicklin's offensive running commentary, all conspire to make the trip a nightmare. And that's well before Nicklin's scheme to exact revenge on Thorne is set into motion. In the twelfth series entry, Billingham makes the most of his bleak, rugged setting while creating an atmosphere of chilling menace as flashbacks reveal the full extent of Nicklin's sadism and Thorne's vulnerability.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2014, American Library Association.)

June 1, 2014

In this 12th series entry (following 2013's The Dying Hours), the good news is that Tom Thorne has been reinstated to his rightful place on the Murder Squad. But that comes with a catch. In this case, he's delegated, along with a gaggle of forensics investigators and local constabulary, to accompany two prisoners (one a formidable and outrageous serial murderer named Stuart Nicklin, who was captured by Thorne years before) to a remote, forbidding, and bewitching isle off the Welsh coast. All of this is ostensibly so that Nicklin can help recover the body of an early victim, and all the details and personnel have been chosen at his personal behest. Thorne can't help but hope there's a limit to his fine fortune. In a former life Billingham was a stand-up comic and obviously took away from that experience crucial lessons about grabbing and holding his audience's attention as he here portions out new characters and cliff-hanger situations to keep his readers turning page after harum-scarum page. VERDICT Any fans of Ian Rankin and John Harvey unfamiliar with this series should have the good luck to hop aboard. [See Prepub Alert, 1/6/14.]--Bob Lunn, Kansas City, MO

Copyright 2014 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from May 1, 2014
DI Tom Thorne escorts a convicted serial killer to a remote Welsh island with predictably eventful results.Twenty-five years after teenage car thief Simon Milner disappeared from Tides House, a facility for young offenders on Bardsey Island, his mother still doesn't know what happened to him. Now she has a chance at the closure she craves. Stuart Nicklin, a notorious murderer who put in his time at Tides House along with Simon, says he killed the boy he befriended and that he knows where he buried him. Since the topography of Bardsey-a real-life island reputedly home to the graves of countless saints-is tricky, Nicklin can't just tell the coppers the location of Simon's last resting place; he has to lead them to it, and he insists on taking along both Thorne, who put him away, and a more recent friend, history teacher Jeffrey Batchelor, who's been imprisoned along with Nicklin for killing the young man who jilted Batchelor's teenage daughter, which led to her suicide. The staff of Long Lartin prison takes all possible precautions in transporting the two prisoners to Bardsey, but Thorne knows that something will go terribly wrong, and of course, he's right. Like the manipulative Nicklin, Billingham (The Dying Hours, 2013, etc.) delights in toying with his audience, and most readers' nerves will be shredded long before the sadistic import of Nicklin's deep-laid plot finally becomes clear.Thorne's 12th is a tour de force of suspense that dares you to guess the secrets of a magician who's made his intentions perfectly clear from the very beginning.

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