Bloodline
A killer is on the loose. The victims: children whose mothers can't protect them.

The past is coming back to haunt the people of London: a murderer is targeting the children of victims of Raymond Garvey, an infamous serial killer from London's past.

When Murder Squad veteran Detective Tom Thorne, who solves the London Police Department's most difficult cases, is called into what seems like, for once, an ordinary domestic murder, he thinks he's caught a break. A woman has been murdered by someone she knows. A positive pregnancy test found on the floor beside her. Thorne plans to question the husband, arrest him and return home to deal with his own deteriorating personal life.

But when a mysterious sliver of bloodstained X-ray that was found clutched in the victim's fist is replicated at other crime scenes around the city, Thorne realizes that this is not a simple case. As the bits of X-ray begin to come together to form a picture, it becomes clear that the killer knows his prey all too well and is moving through a list that was started long ago.

As Thorne attempts to protect those still alive, nothing and nobody are what they seem. Not when Thorne is dealing with one of the most twisted killers he has ever hunted.
"1100164001"
Bloodline
A killer is on the loose. The victims: children whose mothers can't protect them.

The past is coming back to haunt the people of London: a murderer is targeting the children of victims of Raymond Garvey, an infamous serial killer from London's past.

When Murder Squad veteran Detective Tom Thorne, who solves the London Police Department's most difficult cases, is called into what seems like, for once, an ordinary domestic murder, he thinks he's caught a break. A woman has been murdered by someone she knows. A positive pregnancy test found on the floor beside her. Thorne plans to question the husband, arrest him and return home to deal with his own deteriorating personal life.

But when a mysterious sliver of bloodstained X-ray that was found clutched in the victim's fist is replicated at other crime scenes around the city, Thorne realizes that this is not a simple case. As the bits of X-ray begin to come together to form a picture, it becomes clear that the killer knows his prey all too well and is moving through a list that was started long ago.

As Thorne attempts to protect those still alive, nothing and nobody are what they seem. Not when Thorne is dealing with one of the most twisted killers he has ever hunted.
26.59 In Stock
Bloodline

Bloodline

by Mark Billingham

Narrated by Paul Thornley

Unabridged — 11 hours, 14 minutes

Bloodline

Bloodline

by Mark Billingham

Narrated by Paul Thornley

Unabridged — 11 hours, 14 minutes

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Overview

A killer is on the loose. The victims: children whose mothers can't protect them.

The past is coming back to haunt the people of London: a murderer is targeting the children of victims of Raymond Garvey, an infamous serial killer from London's past.

When Murder Squad veteran Detective Tom Thorne, who solves the London Police Department's most difficult cases, is called into what seems like, for once, an ordinary domestic murder, he thinks he's caught a break. A woman has been murdered by someone she knows. A positive pregnancy test found on the floor beside her. Thorne plans to question the husband, arrest him and return home to deal with his own deteriorating personal life.

But when a mysterious sliver of bloodstained X-ray that was found clutched in the victim's fist is replicated at other crime scenes around the city, Thorne realizes that this is not a simple case. As the bits of X-ray begin to come together to form a picture, it becomes clear that the killer knows his prey all too well and is moving through a list that was started long ago.

As Thorne attempts to protect those still alive, nothing and nobody are what they seem. Not when Thorne is dealing with one of the most twisted killers he has ever hunted.

Editorial Reviews

Publishers Weekly

In Billingham's thrilling eighth crime novel featuring London police detective Tom Thorne (after Death Message), Thorne welcomes the distraction of a new case after his girlfriend, Det. Insp. Louise Porter, suffers a miscarriage. When Emily Walker is found beaten and suffocated with a plastic bag in her Finchley home, she appears to be the victim of a domestic dispute—until Thorne learns that a 23-year-old nurse was similarly beaten and suffocated three weeks earlier in Leicester City. Thorne and his team discover that both women's mothers were murdered 15 years earlier by psychopath Raymond Garvey, who killed seven women in four months and later died in prison of a brain tumor. As the body count rises, it's obvious a copycat killer is now targeting the children of Garvey's victims. Thorne's private struggles to process the loss of his unborn child and snippets from the lives of the present-day killer's victims lend poignancy. Billingham continues to captivate with equal parts suspense, deduction, and heart. (July)

Library Journal

On his eighth outing, Det. Tom Thorne wants an easy case—his girlfriend would like to see him sometimes. But the routine murder he takes on turns out to be anything but, as a single detail—a bloodstained X-ray gripped by the victim—starts presenting itself at other crime scenes as well. Having switched U.S. publishers, award-winning British author Billingham has a chance to break out here. Watch.

Kirkus Reviews

DI Tom Thorne volunteers for a case that turns out to be the work of yet another serial killer as inventive as he is depraved.

Suffocating a victim to death after conking her senseless with a blunt instrument isn't by any means a common modus operandi, and it's not long before DS Paul Brewer links the London murder of Emily Walker to the very similar death of Catherine Burke in Leicester three weeks earlier. A third and fourth killing make it clear that the case is open-ended. It's even more startling and disturbing, however, to see what the victims have in common: They're all children of murder victims, the seven people who were killed 15 years ago by Raymond Garvey. Garvey, who died in prison, is safely out of the picture, but someone calling himself Anthony Garvey and identifying himself as the monster's son shows every sign of carrying on the family business. Thorne takes on the assignment at least partly to insulate himself from the news that his own child with DI Louise Porter is never going to be born. But his own traumatic burden keeps Thorne, never a paragon at the brightest of times (Death Message,2009, etc.), from doing his best work, and the killer not only continues to elude the Metropolitan Police despite leaving pounds of forensic evidence at the crime scenes but pulls a major con by manipulating the Met into flushing out the last few victims on his list.

Middling detective work, a compelling villain and the author's usual sensitivity to men and women pushed to the edge by their compulsions, their work or their families.

Product Details

BN ID: 2940170120420
Publisher: Hachette Audio
Publication date: 07/14/2011
Edition description: Unabridged
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