Publisher's Weekly Review
Billingham's outstanding 16th procedural featuring Det. Insp. Tom Thorne (after 2018's The Killing Habit) finds Thorne on duty with a team responsible for assessing whether sudden deaths are suspicious when Philippa Goodwin jumps in front of a train in the London Underground. CCTV images make it clear that no one was near Philippa when she took her fatal leap, but Thorne is driven to look further. Though Philippa didn't leave a note, her older sister suggests a possible motive for her suicide-dismay over being bilked of a large sum of money by the man she'd been dating, who called himself Patrick Jennings. Despite Jennings bearing only moral responsibility for Philippa's death, Thorne persists in investigating him, an obsession that bears fruit when another death linked to Jennings occurs. Alternating sections focused on a single mother who may become Jennings's next target raise the ante. The twisted plot unfolds gradually, with a maximum of suspense. Billingham never strains credulity in this thoughtful page-turner. Agent: David Forrer, Inkwell Management. (June) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Kirkus Review
DI Tom Thorne (The Killing Habit, 2018, etc.) is convinced that a woman who threw herself under a train at the Highgate station wasn't a routine suicide. He's absolutely right, but not at all for the reasons he thinks.Mary Fulton knows perfectly well why her sister, university lecturer Philippa Goodwin, killed herself: Because she'd been fleeced, dumped, and ghosted by Patrick Jennings, who'd bilked her out of 75,000 pounds before he took his departure from her life and her cellphone records. While he's waiting to see if Jennings has any record of having done this before, as he surely must have done, or has left any traces the Met can follow up, Thorne is pulled into another case: the murder of 17-year-old Kevin Deane on Margate Beach. The surveillance cameras that have redefined the turf of contemporary British mysteries indicate that Kevin was bashed to death very shortly after he had sex with a woman who's vanished as completely as Patrick Jennings. In fact, as Billingham reveals at a moment guaranteed to catch the savviest readers off guard, the two fugitives have found each other and are locked in a larcenous folie deux bound to claim more victims, including perhaps each other. The development of their unholy union, which has more layers than an onion, is so compelling that it shunts Thorne and his mates to supporting roles and virtually guarantees an anticlimactic ending. But Billingham, sweating both logistical and psychological details, creates a deepening sense of nightmarish surrealism along the way until Thorne has to acknowledge that "there was very little about this case that wasn't weird."An object lesson in how to take an established series into shockingly deep waters without losing the thread that keeps the franchise going. The detection that normally drives each entry is the least of this one's dark appeal. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Booklist Review
London Detective Inspector Tom Thorne is summoned to what he thinks will be a routine suicide call. A young woman named Phillippa Goodwin threw herself in front of a train. It just doesn't seem right to Thorne, so he digs a little deeper. He learns the young women had been ruthlessly conned to the point that she decided to end her own life. Tracking down the con man is a daunting task, so Thorne pulls in another DI, Nicola Tanner, to partner with him. The pair share a tragedy in the past, but they keep painful memories at bay with a combination of alternately self-deprecating and insulting banter. Next up: a young man's battered body is found at a nearby oceanside town. Soon enough the detectives connect the young man and the suicide. The obsession and madness at the core of the case are unexpected and frightening. This is a fantastic thriller, combining a gripping plot and lead characters of remarkable depth. Billingham is a multiple-award winner, and his books have sold more than six million copies. Readers who grab this one but aren't familiar with its predecessors will be seeking them out. A series to savor.--Wes Lukowsky Copyright 2019 Booklist
