The Burning Girl

By: Mark Billingham

Narrated by: Roger Lloyd Pack

Jessica Clarke had been set alight twenty years ago. Her attacker, quickly tracked down and eager to confess, is still in jail, his career as a hitman for North London gangs now well behind him. So who is harassing Carol Chamberlain, the arresting officer, and claiming that he is one who burned the girl?

Now retired, Carol turns to DI Tom Thorne for help. Thorne is up to his neck investigating a series of killings which appear to be the result of a turf war between rival gangs, and he's fed up to the gills with reporting to DCI Tughan, so helping Carol out looks like a good deed in a naughty world. Only the world is about to turn much nastier, so nasty in fact that he finds himself longing for a straightforward psycopath to hunt down.

This is a powerful work, exploring the effects of violence and greed on the lives of those who exploit their fellow beings.©2001 Mark Billingham

Critic reviews

With The Burning Girl, Mark Billingham steps away from the inventively vicious serial killers of his earlier thrillers to have his police detective Thorne investigate something equally unpleasant--the men who kill for money not kicks and the gangsters who ruthlessly employ them. Thorne's retired friend Carol put Rooker away years ago for setting fire to a girl--whom he mistakenly believed to be the daughter of gang-boss Kelly; the girl did not die, then, but wished she had. Now someone is ringing Carol, saying it was them that burned the girl, and Rooker is promising to tell the truth; Ryan, Alison Kelly's ex-husband and her father's chosen successor, is caught up in gang warfare with a new North London Turkish mafia. As always, Billingham delivers psychological insights you half wish you didn't have, along with a profound sense of just how far the damaged Thorne will go in the name of justice. Anyone who knows North London will recognise this as being as atmospheric as it is moody--Billingham continues to develop from book to book.

A disturbing and ruthlessly compelling novel

Murder and mystery do not come better than this.

Brisk, racy read.

poorest of the first 4 thorne books

i much prefer Billingham's reading. sadly, it wasnt available for this book in the series. also, the bits of music between chapters was annoying.