The Bones Beneath

March 17, 2014
In Billingham’s chilling 12th novel featuring Det. Insp. Tom Thorne (after 2013’s The Dying Hours), serial killer Stuart Nicklin offers to lead the police to the remains of one of his first victims—a 15-year-old boy who vanished 25 years ago while both Nicklin and the teen resided in a therapeutic community for youthful offenders on remote Bardsey Island, off the Welsh coast. But the offer comes with several conditions; in particular, Nicklin wants his nemesis, Thorne, who captured him five years earlier, to head the expedition and another convicted murderer, Jeffrey Batchelor, to accompany them, on the pretext of protecting Nicklin from retaliation for the female officer killed during his arrest. Astonishingly, the authorities agree, setting in motion a meticulously plotted chain of events far more disastrous than the detective fears. Though newcomers may find both Thorne’s opaqueness and the occasional misdirection a tad off-putting, Billingham certainly knows how to make those pages turn even while your stomach churns. Agent: Sarah Lutyens, Lutyens & Rubinstein Literary Agency (U.K.).

June 1, 2014
Detective Inspector Tom Thorne is, as usual, put out. Infamous serial killer Stuart Nicklin is once again playing mind games, claiming he will lead police to the corpse of a 15-year-old boy he murdered when they were both in an experimental program for adolescent offenders on remote Bardsey Island, located off the Welsh coast. What's more, Nicklin will only do so if Thorne accompanies him; Nicklin also requests that fellow prisoner Jeffrey Batchelor, a former college professor incapacitated by depression over his crime and the brutality of prison life, be present to ward off any police brutality, since Nicklin murdered a police officer when he was arrested. Thorne is right to be suspicious. Inhospitable conditions and inclement weather, along with Nicklin's offensive running commentary, all conspire to make the trip a nightmare. And that's well before Nicklin's scheme to exact revenge on Thorne is set into motion. In the twelfth series entry, Billingham makes the most of his bleak, rugged setting while creating an atmosphere of chilling menace as flashbacks reveal the full extent of Nicklin's sadism and Thorne's vulnerability.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2014, American Library Association.)