Die of Shame

April 25, 2016
In this solid standalone from Billingham (Rush of Blood), London therapist Tony De Silva, a recovering drug addict, leads an often tense weekly session with five clients whose only connection is a history of substance abuse. When the body of recovering heroin addict Heather Finlay is found in her flat weeks after her murder, Det. Insp. Nicola Tanner takes on the case. Tanner—perhaps a less compelling but no less competent copper than the author’s series lead, Tom Thorne—learns that Finlay was last seen after an incendiary group meeting and immediately suspects that De Silva’s group is linked to the murder, but she’s stymied by uncooperative group members such as anesthetist Robin Joffe, who wants to keep his past drug use hidden at work, and jilted housewife Diana Knight, who now shops instead of drinking. Shifting between past group sessions and Tanner’s present-day investigation, Billingham builds a complex plot that is as much a whodunit as it is an examination of addiction and the lies people tell themselves to survive. Agent: David Forrer, Inkwell Management.

April 1, 2016
Billingham sets aside his bestselling chronicles of DI Tom Thorne (Time of Death, 2015, etc.) to train a laser-sharp focus on the world's worst therapy group. There's no such thing as an ex-addict, and North London therapist Tony De Silva knows that the best he can hope for is that the members of his Monday night group learn to manage their addictions well enough to remain functioning adults. But even that seems like a lot to ask of this particular group. Anesthesiologist Dr. Robin Joffe has been reduced to a consultancy since the death of his son, something he refuses to talk about. Heather Finlay is burdened by a sorry history with both drink and drugs. Diana Knight's perfect domestic world came crashing down when her husband took up with a girlfriend who's now triumphantly pregnant. Flamboyant male model Chris Clemence seems less interested in recovery than in striking poses and provoking the other members of the group. Newcomer Caroline Armitage, who clearly has issues with food, seems mainly to serve as a fresh target for Chris' taunts. The hothouse atmosphere turns even uglier when Heather, who's missed several weekly sessions since her birthday party, is discovered brutally murdered. How brutally is hard to tell, since DI Nicola Tanner, who's heading the investigation, doesn't leak many details. Neither does Billingham, who's clearly less interested in Tanner's present-day investigation, presented in a conventional past tense, than the dozens of incendiary flashbacks leading up to the murder, dramatically but perversely set forth in the present tense. The result is to create a boiling Petri dish of alliances forged, strained, and broken amid the background of nonstop, sometimes knife-edged conflict. The solution, when it arrives, is satisfying enough. But it's the group portrait of the Monday-night therapy group, the most mismatched set of intimates since your own last family gathering, that lingers longest in the memory.

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May 1, 2016
Every week, five recovering addicts and their therapist, Tony de Silva, gather for a volatile support group. They've met for years and are enmeshed in each other's lives, but no one thinks twice when Heather Finlay doesn't show up for several weeks; addicts, after all, often scarper off. Then Heather's body is found in her London apartment weeks after her apparent murder, and DI Nicola Tanner is faced with a true whodunit. Heather had no friends beyond the support group, and de Silva invokes confidentiality rules, effectively halting Tanner's progress retracing the victim's last days. But, when a group member lets it slip that the group's last meeting was a revelation of shame that evolved into bitter fights, Tanner relentlessly picks apart de Silva's and the group members' meager statements, revealing the group's devolution into raging distrust. Tanner's investigation plays against the story of the support group's interactions before and after the murder as Billingham (a Theakston's and Sherlock award winner) skillfully layers the deceits and betrayals concealing a satisfying twist. A must-read for Val McDermid fans.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2016, American Library Association.)

May 15, 2016

Once a week six people come together in London to talk about their addictive behavior and confront the shame that may account for it. There is an alcoholic doctor, a well-to-do divorcee, a gay prostitute, an obese woman, a drug abuser--even the analyst has a history. When the body of a member is found several weeks after that person was stabbed to death, DI Nicola Tanner is convinced the killer must be someone in the group. The confidentiality of the sessions, the compulsive lying of the participants, the complexity of their backgrounds all frustrate her probe. By the end the reader has identified the killer, but Tanner has not. In Billingham's third stand-alone (after Rush of Blood), chapters move between present and past in which each character's backstory and interrelationship to the group are skillfully revealed. VERDICT Billingham draws readers in as he fleshes out each character, ratchets up the tension, and surprises--and then does it again while advancing toward an ending that is tantalizingly not final. [See Prepub Alert, 12/14/15; library marketing; eight-city tour.]--Roland Person, formerly with Southern Illinois Univ. Lib., Carbondale

Copyright 2016 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

January 1, 2016

In this new mystery from a two-time Theakston's Old Peculiar Award winner, six disparate people (from a doctor to a male prostitute) meet regularly with a therapist at a fashionable North London home to help one another cope with drug addiction. When one is murdered, rules of confidentiality hinder the investigation.

Copyright 2016 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.