Detective Thorne #4
William Morrow
July 2005
Featuring: Detective Inspector Tom Thorne
352 pages ISBN: 0060745266 EAN: 9780060745264 Hardcover Add to Wish List
X marks the spot – and when that spot is a corpse’s naked
back and the X is carved in blood, DI Tom Thorne is in no
doubt that the dead man is the latest victim of a
particularly vicious contract killer. It’s morbid and messy
– but it’s a mystery with plenty of clues. This is turf
warfare between North London gangs. Organised crime boss
Billy Ryan is moving into someone else’s patch, and that
someone is not best pleased.
Thorne’s got plenty on his plate when he agrees to help out
ex-DCI Carol Chamberlain rake through the ashes of an old
case that has come back to haunt her. Schoolgirl Jessica
Clarke was turned into a human torch twenty years ago. Now,
Gordon Rooker, the man she put away for the crime, is up for
possible release, and it seems there’s a copycat at large.
Or perhaps it’s someone trying to `right’ a few wrongs. For
Jessica Clarke was the victim of mistaken identity. The
intended target was the daughter of a gangland boss, a woman
who would grow up to marry a man named Billy Ryan ...
For Thorne, what starts as a tenuous link becomes two pieces
of the same puzzle. Past and present gradually fuse together
to form a new, and very nasty riddle. One that involves
more killings, protection rackets, human cargoes, and a
murderous family with no values – except gain at any price.
And when an X is carved on his front door, Tom Thorne knows
that the smouldering embers of a long dead case are about to
erupt into flames…