The Burning Girl

The Barnes & Noble ReviewTom Thorne is back -- and as angst-ridden as ever -- in the fourth installment of Mark Billingham's brilliantly brutal saga featuring the gritty London detective inspector (Sleepyhead, Scaredy Cat, and Lazybones). In The Burning Girl, Thorne teams up with retired detective Carol Chamberlain to help solve a horrific 20-year-old crime that ties in with an ongoing war between gangland families. Thorne is investigating an escalating turf war between two major underworld factions -- specifically, murders involving an assassin-for-hire who marks his victims by carving a large X into their backs with what appears to be a filleting knife -- when he gets a disturbing call from Chamberlain concerning an old crime involving a madman who inexplicably set a young girl on fire. The man, Gordon Rooker, confessed to the crime and has been in jail ever since, but someone claiming to be the real pyromaniac has been sending Chamberlain some not-so-subtle messages that the wrong person was convicted. As Thorne delves deeper into the "X Man" murders and Chamberlain reexamines the tragic case of the burning girl, they discover links between the crimes -- but as Thorne closes in on the killer, an X appears on his own door Billingham has been hailed as the next great British crime writer, and with good reason. With masterfully plotted (and frequently shocking) story lines driven by rage, lust, greed, and corpses, a cast of starkly realistic characters, and pacing that should legally require a seatbelt, Billingham's The Burning Girl is a wild literary thrill ride that is as unpredictable as it is unforgettable. Buckle up and enjoy! Paul Goat Allen