Scaredy Cat by Mark Billingham
Publisher: Sphere
Genre: Contemporary, Mystery/Suspense/Thriller
Rating: 4 stars
Reviewed by Fern

It was a vicious, calculated murder. The killer selected his victim at London’s Euston station, followed her home on the tube, strangled her to death in front of her child. At the same time, killed in the same way, a second body is discovered at the back of King’s Cross station. It is a grisly coincidence that eerily echoes the murders of two other women, stabbed to death months before on the same day.

DI Tom Thorne sees the link and comes to a horrifying conclusion. This is not a serial killer that the police are up against—this is two of them. Finding the body used to be the worst part of the job, but not any more. Now each time a body is found, Thorne knows that somewhere out there is a second victim waiting to be discovered. But while the killers’ methods might be the same, their manner is strikingly different. Thorne comes to realize that he is hunting very different people—one ruthless and in control, the other submissive, compliant, terrified.

Thorne must catch a man whose need to manipulate is as great as his need to kill. A man who will threaten those closest to Thorne himself and show him that the ability to inspire terror is the deadliest weapon of all . . .

DI Tom Thorne is part of a small team in London as part of the Serious Crimes unit. When the strangling murder of a young mother – in front of her three year old son – is brought to their attention they quickly link it with an almost identical strangling murder of another young woman carried out on the same day. But when a similar pattern is shown – in the stabbing murder of another two women some month’s previously, DI Thorne discovers it would not have been physically possible for the one killer to perform both these stabbing murders. As Thorne and his team conclude there must be two murderers acting together they soon realise this case it not going to be as straightforward as they first assumed.

This is the second book in the DI Tom Thorne series and I greatly enjoyed it. In many respects Thorne’s inner musings are somber and while I felt this definitely helped give the story a grittier edge, it’s not necessarily good or fun reading. That said, I have to commend the author on his excellent weaving together of the plot.

In the first half of the book it jumps back and forth from the two murderer’s childhood antics together and then forward into the present day and the murder cases. Often I find this gives a book a jarring or disjointed effect but I was really impressed with how well the author meshed this all together here. I personally felt the story was given a lot more depth with this background information and it helped me understand far more clearly why the second murderer in particular was so entangled in everything and ended up down this path at all. It really helped flesh out the story and made it a hundred times more believable to me so I was very impressed.

I also was really happy when in the later half of the book the pace increased markedly as the actual hunt began in earnest. Without all the detail, history and build up in the first half I don’t feel the rest of the book would have packed anywhere near the punch it did. Once this ball got rolling the story was a massive steamroller and I admit I lost quite a few hours sleep – unable to put it down once the pace really got cracking.

I found this to be an exceptionally written, if slightly uncomfortable, British police procedural murder mystery book. While not perfect, I felt the characters were relatable and realistic, and the plot was well woven and utterly believable. An excellent book that, towards the end, became unputdownable. This was a great read, and I can’t wait to start the next in the series.