The astonishing thirteenth Tom Thorne novel is a story of kidnapping, the tabloid press, and a frightening case of mistaken identity. Tom Thorne is on holiday with his girlfriend DS Helen Weeks, when two girls are abducted in Helen's home town. When a body is discovered and a man is arrested, Helen recognizes the suspect's wife as an old school-friend and returns home for the first time in twenty-five years to lend her support. As his partner faces up to a past she has tried desperately to forget and a media storm engulfs the town, Thorne becomes convinced that, despite overwhelming evidence of his guilt, the police have got the wrong man. There is still an extremely clever and killer on the loose and a missing girl who Thorne believes might still be alive.
"Some ingenious forensic footwork. What is most impressive about the novel, however, is the astute observation of the beleaguered Bates family, who turn in on themselves as the inhabitants of the town turn on them."
Guardian (UK)
"Clever and inventive."
Finacial Times
"The writing displays the virtues that have made Mark Billingham a bestseller: wit, careful plotting, attention to detail (some of it gruesome) and great characterization not just Thorne and Helen but subsidiary figures such as the e-cigarette-puffing local police chief . . . An entertaining read. This won't disappoint Billingham's legions of fans."
