The Bones Beneath
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4.2 • 89 Ratings
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- £4.99
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- £4.99
Publisher Description
The twelfth book in the Tom Thorne series, from bestselling author Mark Billingham.
'Atmospheric, gripping . . . with a superb ending' Sunday Express
The Deal
Tom Thorne is back in charge - but there's a terrifying price to pay. Stuart Nicklin, the most dangerous psychopath he has ever put behind bars, promises to reveal the whereabouts of a body he buried twenty-five years before. But only if Thorne agrees to escort him.
The Danger
Unable to refuse, Thorne gathers a team and travels to a remote Welsh island, at the mercy of the weather and cut off from the mainland. Thorne is determined to get the job done and return home before Nicklin can outwit them.
The Deaths
But Nicklin knows this island well and has had time to plan ahead. Soon, new bodies are added to the old, and Thorne finds himself facing the toughest decision he has ever had to make...
Tom Thorne returns in this utterly gripping, brilliantly plotted thriller. The Bones Beneath is Sunday Times bestseller Mark Billingham's most ambitious and accomplished work to date.
'One of the great series of British crime fiction' The Times
'Mark Billingham gets better and better' Michael Connelly
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
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.
Customer Reviews
Cracking novel
Mark Billingham and Tom Thorne are a recent, accidental and wholly enjoyable discovery for me.
In this novel Thorne is quite literally taken for a ride by an old adversary: a psychopathic killer and consummate, chillingly sinister wind-up artist with not an ounce of humour in his wind-ups but that which he finds for himself. The main action happens on a trip from Long Lartin prison, current residence of the villain, to Bardsey Island in Wales; the ostensible purpose is to search for the remains of a young offender, victim of the villain 25 years before. But there's plenty going on back on the mainland to keep the interest and the puzzle going. Every attempt to predict the next move is confounded, and every corner turned brings new interest and pleasurable contradiction of expectations.
The pace never seems to slacken, but never seems hurried; the plot twists and turns like crazy but never gets tangled. The author keeps you guessing up to the final page.
To avoid spoiler alerts I had to delete a section here; suffice it to say, I look forward eagerly to my next outing with Thorne.
The Bones Beneath.
Not sure how I missed this latest instalment of DI Tom Thorne. This book gripped from page one. The "cat & mouse" games Thorne's nemesis Nicklin plays make this a real page turner. Loved the book and the mystical setting of Bardsey Island, a place I would now love to visit ( not after dark) 😁, can't wait for the next book.