Another murder follows, this time of a pornographer whom the detectives link to the other dead men. While some of his fellow policemen feel that the victims deserved their fate, Thorne's commitment to justice remains unfailing. When a second recently released rapist is discovered in the same condition, Thorne believes he has a serial revenge killer on his hands.

After the body of a strangled and sexually violated male is found in a seedy hotel room, Thorne quickly learns that the victim was a convicted rapist. ) featuring Detective Inspector Tom Thorne and his fellow officers of the London Metropolitan Police Service. Programs would do well to tune into this third in Billingham's series ( Scaredy Cat Lazybones won the Theakstons Old Peculier Award for Crime Novel Of The Year 2005.Fans of public television's various BBC Mystery It is only as his investigation continues that Thorne finally discovers a victim worth fighting for, a victim whose identity becomes crucial in cracking this most twisted of cases…ĭownload the first chapter of Lazybones. This time, he has little sympathy for the dead.

Thorne works best when his passions are up, when his anger flares him into action. When a second sex offender is discovered dead, the police believe they have a vicious, calculating vigilante on their hands.īut how does the killer lure his victims to their deaths? Who do the victims think they are going to meet in these hotel rooms? Then the police find the letters… Someone wanted to mete out some punishment of his own. It is only ten days since convicted rapist Douglas Remfry had been released from prison. And then there’s the oddest detail of all – the call from the florist to check arrangements about the wreath… Kneeling, naked on a bare mattress, his head is hooded and his hands tied tight with a brown leather belt. The body is found in the grubbiest of North London hotel rooms. Thorne guessed that at the end, he probably had been. He looked at the dead man on the bed – the position of him, as if he were praying.

This was the work of a killer driven by something special, something spectacular.

Thorne knew when he was looking at something out of the ordinary.

Lazybones by Mark Billingham