Death Message (Tom Thorne Series #7) Book

Winner of the UK's 2009 Theakston's Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year Award

It's carried by police officers to your door—the last words anyone ever wants to hear: The Death Message.

Detective Investigator Tom Thorne is receiving messages of his own: photographs of murder victims sent to his cell phone. Thorne doesn't know who's sending the grisly pictures, who the victims are, or why he has been chosen—but he knows a dead man when he sees one. Ensnared in an investigation that threatens to confound his judgment and destroy his career, he must track down a fiendishly elusive killer before time runs out. Because the slayings are somehow connected to the most terrifying psychopath he has ever encountered—and the blood trail is about to cross into Thorne's personal life.

Publishers Weekly

When Det. Insp. Thorne receives an anonymous text message with a blurry photograph of a dead man, Thorne wonders if someone is playing a macabre trick in Billingham's outstanding seventh novel to feature the London policeman (after 2007's Buried). But when another, similar photo arrives, Thorne knows it's something much worse. Both victims are identified as members of the Black Dogs, a notorious biker gang, and fingerprints point to Marcus Brooks, recently paroled after serving time for allegedly killing the Black Dogs' leader. Brooks claims he was framed for the gang leader's murder; a few weeks before his release, Brooks's girlfriend and son are killed in a suspicious hit-and-run. Now Thorne fears that Brooks is out for revenge, targeting both the gang that landed him in prison and the bent coppers who may be behind it all. Billingham continues to enrich Thorne's world by introducing new villains and by highlighting connections to old cases and older wounds. (Oct.)