Tom Thorne

"X" marks the spot of a vicious killer, his calling card the letter carved on his victims' backs. While the killings are morbid, they also offer detective Tom Thorne plenty of clues. This is turf warfare between North London gangs; organized crime boss Billy Ryan is moving into someone else's patch. Thorne also agrees to help out ex-DCI Carol Chamberlain on an old murder case involving the immolation of a schoolgirl. But soon the two separate investigations begin to fuse into one new, very nasty riddle involving a murderous family that values nothing but its own power. When an "X" is carved on his front door, Thorne knows these crimes of past and present will soon engulf him, too.

It has been a decade since Alan Langford's charred remains were discovered in his burnt-out car. His wife Donna was found guilty of conspiracy to murder her husband and served ten years in prison. But just before she is released, Donna receives a nasty shock: an anonymous letter containing a photo of her husband. The man she hates with every fiber of her being--the man she paid to have murdered--seems very much alive and well. How is it possible that her husband is still alive? Where is he? Who sent the photo, and why? Detective Inspector Tom Thorne becomes involved in a case where nothing and no one are what they seem. It will take him much further from his London beat than he has ever been before--and closer to a killer who will do anything to protect his new life.

Newly demoted after stepping out of line once too often, and struggling to adjust, Detective Inspector Tom Thorne becomes convinced that a spate of suicides among the elderly in London is something more sinister. His concerns are dismissed by the murder squad he was once part of and he is forced to investigate alone. Now, unable to trust anybody, Thorne risks losing those closest to him as well as endangering those being targeted by a killer unlike any he has hunted before: a man with nothing to lose and a growing list of victims, a man who appears to have the power to make people take their own lives.

In The Bones Beneath, the latest addition to the internationally bestselling Tom Thorne series, Thorne once again must confront Stuart Nicklin, a master manipulator and ruthless murderer. When Nicklin announces that he wishes to reveal the whereabouts of one of his earliest victims and that he wants the cop who caught him to be there when he does it, it becomes clear that Thorne's life is about to become seriously unpleasant. Thorne is forced to accompany Nicklin to a remote island off the Welsh coast which is cut off from the mainland in every sense. Shrouded in myth and legend, it is said to be the resting place of 20,000 saints, and as Thorne and his team search for bones that are somewhat more recent, it becomes clear that Nicklin's motives are darker than could be imagined. The twisted scheme of a dangerous and manipulative psychopath will result in many more victims and will leave Tom Thorne with the most terrible choice he has ever had to make.

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.

DI Nicola Tanner needs Tom Thorne's help. Her partner, Susan, has been brutally murdered and Tanner is convinced that it was a case of mistaken identity-that she was the real target. The murderer's motive might have something to do with Tanner's recent work on a string of cold-case honor killings she believes to be related. Tanner is now on compassionate leave but insists on pursuing the case off the books and knows Thorne is just the man to jump into the fire with her. He agrees but quickly finds that working in such controversial territory is dangerous in more ways than one. And when a young couple goes missing, they have a chance to investigate a case that is anything but cold. Racing towards a twist-filled ending, Love Like Blood is another feat of masterful plotting from one of Britain's top crime novelists.

When DI Tom Thorne is called to conduct a routine assessment at the site of a suicide, he expects to be in and out in no time. But when he arrives at the metro station, where a woman named Philippa Goodwin threw herself in front of an underground train, Thorne inexplicably senses something awry and feels compelled to dig deeper. He soon discovers that she was the victim of a callous con-man who preys on vulnerable women, and whose deception plunged Philippa to her end. Thorne enlists DI Nicola Tanner to help him track down the swindler and bring him to justice. But the detective duo gets more than they bargained for when a young man's bludgeoned body turns up on the shore of a nearby seaside town. The two cases come together in a way that neither of the detectives could have foreseen. Brilliantly plotted with a shocking psychological bent, Their Little Secret is another masterful thriller from one of Britain's most beloved crime writers. With twists and turns that will keep listeners guessing until the very end, this is Mark Billingham's most chilling novel yet.

Two boys run into the woods-but only one returns In the summer of 1996, two boys run from a playground into the adjoining woods, but only one comes out. DS Tom Thorne takes on the case-which quickly spirals out of control when two people connected to the missing boy are murdered. As London prepares to host the European Soccer Championships, Thorne fights to keep on top of a baffling investigation while also dealing with the ugly fallout of his broken marriage . . . A prequel to Mark Billingham's acclaimed debut Sleepyhead.