Buried by Mark Billingham
Jun. 23rd, 2007 01:03 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
quippeThe Blurb On The Back:
A missing boy.
Teenager Luke Mullen was last seen getting into a car with an older woman. No one can understand why he has disappeared. His father - a former police officer - knows all too well that the longer he is missing, the more likely he is to turn up dead.
A terrifying video.
Then Luke's parents receive an anonymous video. It shows their son, eyes wide with terror, as a man advances towards him holding a syringe.
A race against time.
DI Tom Thorne recognises a psychopath when he sees one. And the scene on the tape chills him to the bone - he knows that a child's life hangs in the balance, and that every minute counts ...
I had a horrible feeling that this series was in danger of going downhill after Lifeless and Buried really confirms it. The deft and taut plotting that characterised the early books in the Tom Thorne series has disappeared, replaced with a series of contrivances that help Thorne stumble towards the resolution and the characteristics that made him so interesting (his interest in country music, his jaundiced take on the world) have been replaced with yet more Dead Daddy Angst (this time in the form of dreams and visions) and chronic back pain.
Essentially, Thorne is still unpopular with his superiors, who take the opportunity to hive him and Holland off to the Kidnapping and Special Investigations division to help Laura Porter conduct the investigation. The investigation itself has the usual aspects - the parents who aren't telling the police everything, the ex-policeman father who's getting inside information on the investigation, chasing down people with a grudge against the father and double-checking stories etc etc - and is interspersed with some chapters from the viewpoint of the kidnappers. The story itself hinges on paedophilia (a subject that's being used too much to have any impact nowadays) and the events surrounding what happens in the first chapter. For me, it's a cheap device and I thought that Billingham's resolution (which relies far too heavily on his having deliberately withholding the key information to prevent anyone from guessing) was cheap and rather pathetic.
The romance angle between Thorne and Porter is half-hearted, as is the secondary plot (the investigation of a racially motivated attack and sexual assault on an Asian boy that results in his death). In fact, the link between the seconday plot and the primary plot is so tenuous that you really wonder why Billingham bothered and the way he tied it in with his over-arching theme was so glib as to be insulting. Phil Hendricks makes a return but Billingham has decided to give him relationship problems, which reduces him to little more than an angsty, crying mess. There are the odd touches of humour that help remind you why Billingham was worth reading and he retains his skill at pacing, but it's not enough to salvage the plot.
The Verdict:
Plodding and dull - I think the series has lost his way and Tom Thorne feels like every other policeman cliche, albeit with Dead Dad visions and back trouble. Billingham doesn't seem to care about his story, which means that I definitely didn't, if it wasn't for Billingham's gift for pacing, it would have been very tedious to read. I might keep in touch with the series if they're available at the library or from a charity shop, but I certainly won't be buying them again.
Teenager Luke Mullen was last seen getting into a car with an older woman. No one can understand why he has disappeared. His father - a former police officer - knows all too well that the longer he is missing, the more likely he is to turn up dead.
Then Luke's parents receive an anonymous video. It shows their son, eyes wide with terror, as a man advances towards him holding a syringe.
DI Tom Thorne recognises a psychopath when he sees one. And the scene on the tape chills him to the bone - he knows that a child's life hangs in the balance, and that every minute counts ...
I had a horrible feeling that this series was in danger of going downhill after Lifeless and Buried really confirms it. The deft and taut plotting that characterised the early books in the Tom Thorne series has disappeared, replaced with a series of contrivances that help Thorne stumble towards the resolution and the characteristics that made him so interesting (his interest in country music, his jaundiced take on the world) have been replaced with yet more Dead Daddy Angst (this time in the form of dreams and visions) and chronic back pain.
Essentially, Thorne is still unpopular with his superiors, who take the opportunity to hive him and Holland off to the Kidnapping and Special Investigations division to help Laura Porter conduct the investigation. The investigation itself has the usual aspects - the parents who aren't telling the police everything, the ex-policeman father who's getting inside information on the investigation, chasing down people with a grudge against the father and double-checking stories etc etc - and is interspersed with some chapters from the viewpoint of the kidnappers. The story itself hinges on paedophilia (a subject that's being used too much to have any impact nowadays) and the events surrounding what happens in the first chapter. For me, it's a cheap device and I thought that Billingham's resolution (which relies far too heavily on his having deliberately withholding the key information to prevent anyone from guessing) was cheap and rather pathetic.
The romance angle between Thorne and Porter is half-hearted, as is the secondary plot (the investigation of a racially motivated attack and sexual assault on an Asian boy that results in his death). In fact, the link between the seconday plot and the primary plot is so tenuous that you really wonder why Billingham bothered and the way he tied it in with his over-arching theme was so glib as to be insulting. Phil Hendricks makes a return but Billingham has decided to give him relationship problems, which reduces him to little more than an angsty, crying mess. There are the odd touches of humour that help remind you why Billingham was worth reading and he retains his skill at pacing, but it's not enough to salvage the plot.
The Verdict:
Plodding and dull - I think the series has lost his way and Tom Thorne feels like every other policeman cliche, albeit with Dead Dad visions and back trouble. Billingham doesn't seem to care about his story, which means that I definitely didn't, if it wasn't for Billingham's gift for pacing, it would have been very tedious to read. I might keep in touch with the series if they're available at the library or from a charity shop, but I certainly won't be buying them again.
