A good detective/thriller featuring Tom Thorne. I wavered between three stars and four stars and came down to three, because I do not think this is up to the standard of Billingham's first novels, which had me hooked - Sleepyhead and Lazybones. An intriguing and suitably gruesome story line featuring a serial killer, but the plot does not develop in a solid coherent manner. The trouble with following a particular detective series is that the private lives of the characters become as interesting as the detective/thriller aspect. Having said that I did enjoy the book and will remain a faithful Mark Billingham reader