Mark Billingham, Lifeless

Lifeless

Mark Billingham

Morrow, Aug 2006, $24.95

ISBN: 0060841664

In London, Specialist Crime Directorate Murder Investigation Team Detective Inspector Tom Thorne is not dealing well with the death of his manic father. His superiors decide he needs time away from violent crime; as such they assign him "gardening leave", which means desk duty ad nausea.

Bored and with too much time to think about personal thoughts rather than cases, Tom begs his way onto an investigation into someone kicking to death the homeless. His boss reluctantly agrees to allow Tom to go undercover as a homeless person though those who worry about his mental state fear he is trying to destruct. He begins living on the street where the cold is unbearable though food is readily available, but the serial killer continues to murder Tom's new peers, mentors, and dangerous rivals.

Lifeless is a superb British police procedural starring an empathic detective who's so despondent that the audience wonders whether he will "return" to his middle class existence once the case is resolved. Tom terrific is at his best in this superb undercover investigative storyline. However, what makes this tale so powerful is spin on the homeless as a community with a hierarchal relationships filled with dos and don'ts. Mark Billingham provides a fabulous societal issue based investigative thriller.

Harriet Klausner