Sleepyhead by Mark Billingham
Publisher: Sphere Publishing
Genre: Contemporary, Mystery/Suspense/Thriller
Rating: 3 Stars
Reviewed by FernHis first three victims ended up dead. His fourth was not so fortunate . . .
Alison Willetts is unlucky to be alive. She has survived a stroke, deliberately induced by a skillful manipulation of pressure points on the head and neck. She can see, hear, and feel and is aware of everything going on around her, but is completely unable to move or communicate. Her condition is called locked-in syndrome. In leaving Alison Willetts alive, the police believe the killer made his first mistake.
Then DI Tom Thorne discovers the horrifying truth; it isn’t Alison who is the mistake, it’s the three women already dead. The killer is getting his kicks out of toying with Thorne as much as he is pursuing his sick fantasy, and as the detective zeroes in on a suspect, he finds himself pushed to his personal and professional limits . . .
When three young women appear to die suddenly from a stroke with no other signs of damage to their bodies and no real prior indicators they were at risk the medical community thinks there might be something else occurring. Only a sharp pathologist notices sedatives in a recent case’s blood and damage to the ligaments on the young woman’s neck. When DI Tom Thorne begins to investigate, he soon is told that the most recent case – where the woman survived but has locked in syndrome – is not the “mistake” but indeed the crowning glory and exactly what the killer has been trying to achieve, Thorne realizes that what appeared to be a fairly standard case is anything but.
I greatly enjoy British Police procedural style of murder mysteries but this first book in a new to me series is slightly different. I admit it took me a while to get used to the slight jumping around in the perspectives – usually an author stays fairly close to one style of telling the story, but this book has quite a few different voices going on. While I admit it definitely added to the story this did take me a little to get used to and grasp what all the different perspectives were on about. I’m not sure this will appeal to all readers, but I would strongly recommend the reader stick with it as the story definitely is worth getting a handle on the narrative style.
I was also pleased that Tom wasn’t all-powerful and made mistakes. A few times I really did wonder if the author had maybe given a bit too much perception to Tom, but I was pleased he got some things wrong and other things right. This seemed fairly realistic to me and helped me connect a bit better with Tom’s character which I admit I struggled with in a few places.
On the one hand the plot is quite straight forward – find the killer who is murdering young women but causing them to stroke out and die. Yet really this book is quite a bit more complicated than that. Tom has a very layered and complex relationship with his colleagues and managers in the police force, and I enjoyed watching him sort some of that out with a few key colleagues throughout the story. Tom also has some unresolved baggage from a life-changing case over a decade ago and while this history doesn’t overshadow the current case and issues – it’s there filtering and shadowing Tom, nevertheless.
I also enjoyed that Tom might need a few home truths really hammered in to him – but when this did occur in the book he finally sat up and took notice. In all I found this book to be well written, intensely plotted and quite addictive to read. I’m certain I’ll pick up the next in the series because I’m deeply curious how Tom will pull up after the events in this case.
A different and somewhat complicated story I felt this was an excellent first book. I can believe the writing style (and characters) might not suit everyone but for readers who like a slightly gritter British police procedural style of story and their stories told in layers and not necessarily in a linear function this is probably a good book to try out.