Currently reading: GOOD AS DEAD by Mark Billingham

Regular readers of Crime Watch will be aware that English author Mark Billingham is one of my favourite crime writers, and that I really enjoy the consistency and quality of his award-winning series starring London copper Tom Thorne. So it was with great pleasure that I got to work this morning to find a copy of Billingham's upcoming Thorne tale, his tenth, GOOD AS DEAD, waiting for me on my desk.

Other books I've been reading have immediately been put on hold, and I've already dived into GOOD AS DEAD on my lunch break. Here's the backcover blurb:

The Hostage
Police officer Helen Weeks walks into her local newsagent's on her way to work. Little does she know that this simple daily ritual will change her life forever. It's the last place she expects to be met with violence, but as she waits innocently at the till, she comes face to face with a gunman.

The Demand
The crazed hostage-taker is desperate to know what really happened to his beloved son, who died a year before in youth custody. By holding a police officer at gunpoint, he will force the one man who knows more about the case than any other to re-investigate his son's death. That man is DI Tom Thorne.

The Twist
While Helen fights to stay alive and the body-count rises,Thorne must race against time if he is to bring a killer to justice and save a young mother's life.

You can read my 9mm interview with Mark Billingham here.

Have you read any of Billingham's Tom Thorne novels, or his acclaimed standalone IN THE DARK? Have you watched the TV series starring David Morrissey as Thorne? Thoughts welcome.