Mark Billingham Buried

Buried

Mark Billingham

HarperCollins, Aug 2007, $24.95

ISBN: 9780061255694

In London, retired Detective Chief Superintendent Anthony Mullen and his wife Maggie report their sixteen years old son Luke kidnapped from his exclusive school by an older woman. Anthony calls in favors from his former subordinate current Chief Superintendent Jesmond so that the Metropolitan Police Kidnap Unit is supplemented by cops from other departments. Thus Detective Inspector Tom Thorne, who normally works homicide, joins the kidnap task force.

He and Kidnap Unit DI Louise Porter interview the Mullens and their daughter fourteen year old Juliet. The cops find major discrepancies as they do not understand why it took twos days for the Mullens to report Luke never came home or why no ransom has surfaced. Louise and Tom believe someone who has it out for Anthony is the culprit, but in spite of his previous job the retired cop gives them very few suspects to consider. As Tom keeps digging he believes the teen is dead, but refuses to quit on the chance the lad still lives and besides if a homicide occurred, he has culprit(s) to catch.

This exhilarating English police procedural starts a bit slow as the audience meets a bored Tom (and his sore back), who has spent the last six months in an office as a paper monitor shuffling documents after his last undercover assignment. Thus he looks forward to working the kidnap investigation although that is not his expertise. Although the rotating perspective can prove a bit confusing, the twisting case is cleverly devised so that the audience will enjoy the inquiries of Tom and Louise as each is reminded that resolution does not mean a happy ending for anyone.

Harriet Klausner