I used to love him when I read Sleepyhead back when it was first released and the followings stories of DI Thorne but for some reason I haven't read any recently until Time of Death. However the book is still full of the usual world weary cynicism and sarcasm that we have come to know and love and Thorne and Hendricks make a great double act.

Thorne has some baggage from past cases, but is a functional detective, well able to handle the pressures of the job, and oh joy! The main narrative though concentrates largely on Helen and her relationship with her old friend Linda Bates- it shows how the lives of innocent people, namely Linda and her two children are torn apart when her husband, the children's stepfather is arrested initially for abduction and then charged on counts of both murder and abduction. While I enjoyed Time of Death very much, I suspect that I would have liked it even more if I had read it with a knowledge of this well-established series to back it up (this is the thirteenth outing for Thorne).When it's splashed all over the press that family man Stephen Bates has been arrested, Helen and her partner Tom Thorne head to the flooded town to support Bates' wife - an old school friend of Helen's - who is living under siege with two teenage children and convinced of her husband's innocence. When it's splashed all over the press that family man Stephen Bates has been arrested, Helen and her partner Tom Thorne head to the flooded town to support Bates' wife ­ an old school friend of Helen¹s ­ living under siege with two teenage children and convinced of her husband's innocence. But this one was great with lots of simultaneous stories to attract your attention from the mystery. So, he does his own looking into the case and becomes even more convinced that the police don't have the airtight case that they believe that they do. As the evidence mounts up against the man a press feeding frenzy begins and the Bates family find themselves under siege from not only the press but hordes of angry people who seem to take it upon themselves to punish the family for the alleged crimes of Stephen Bates.

It's interesting to see the story from the perspective of the family of the accused, although they're all so unlikeable I couldn't develop much sympathy for them. uk/landing-page/little-brown-book-group/little-brown-book-group-company-information/">Little, Brown Book Group Limited. Sign up to the Little, Brown newsletter for news of upcoming publications, competitions and updates from our authors. I've written so many reviews recently complaining about too many commas, too many similes, appalling spelling and grammar, having to go back through a book due to not remembering who So-and-So is.I am slowly working my way through the excellent Tom Thorne series of books written by Mark Billingham, I have yet to read a bad book in this series, they are certainly some of the best the crime genre has to offer. This is the fourth book by the author and is my least favorite till now as it was very slow moving and therefore hard to pick up again. I particularly liked the way the locals spoke, it felt very real and certainly they used phrases and words that people round here use all the time.