The Burning Girl by Mark Billingham

The Burning Girl by Mark Billingham
Publisher: Sphere
Genre: Contemporary, Mystery/Suspense/Thriller
Rating: 3 stars
Reviewed by Fern

A series of brutal gangland slayings — each victim found with an X gouged into his back — has Thorne plunging into the fires of a deadly turf war, as he attempts to tie together the threads of perplexing crimes separated by decades. But time is rapidly running out in his search for a copycat who revels in blood and pain — because the body count keeps rising . . . and someone has carved an X into Tom Thorne’s front door.

A particularly vicious killer is making an inter-gang war become a lot harsher than is usual. And soon the revenge tit-for-tat acts between the gangs bleed over into the innocent civilians caught in the crossfire. DI Tom Thorne and his team are trying to work with the organized crime group to mitigate the fall out. To make matters harder a killer long imprisoned and related to one of these gangs has suddenly changed his tune – insisting the burning of a young girl, the act he’s been put away so very long for – wasn’t actually him, but someone else. And when another young girl is very nearly killed in the exact same manner, Tom and his superiors suddenly can’t ignore this killer might be telling the truth for a change.

I found this to be a busy and interesting British police procedural novel. It was a little different to previous books in this series in that there were two strong cases in this book, both given quite a lot of time in the forefront, so I was sometimes a little confused as to which story was leading, and which was following. There is quite a bit of overlap and that muddied the waters for me a fair bit too.

Similar to other books in this series I found the writing to be quite gritty and the characters realistic but a little harsh and lean. Readers who prefer softer police thrillers or a more country or rural feel to their crimes definitely might not find this story hits the spot with them. I will admit though that some of the darker aspects and internal questioning from DI Thorne didn’t strike me in this book as quite as heavy as I’ve felt it was in previous books. The feel and tone of this book was still gritty and very urban, but I didn’t feel it was as bleak in this book as I’ve thought it was in the previous few books.

I could believe that having two different, but equally strong plotlines might not sit well with some readers – in some respects this felt like Tom and the team had their attention divided between the two big cases. While I can empathize with this, and agree I usually don’t enjoy this style of writing, in this book I felt having the two cases didn’t feel like padding but more felt as if Tom and his team had their plates full and it helped solidify the image throughout the story that there were multiple balls in the air and everything was quite hectic and tilting out of control. Which is how you’d think life might feel for a police officer when rival gangs were virtually in a turf war and everything was spiraling.

Gritty and realistic, this was an excellent although slightly uncomfortable read. With plenty of plot and action this isn’t a gentle murder mystery but a lean and hard British police procedural. I enjoyed it and am eager for the next in the series.