Sleepyhead
As seen:
By Mark Billingham, and and, Robert Glenister
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1 review
It’s rare for a young woman to die from a stroke and when three such deaths occur in short order it starts to look like an epidemic. Then a sharp pathologist notices traces of benzodiazepine in one of the victim’s blood samples and just traceable damage to the ligaments in her neck, and their cause of death is changed from ‘natural’ to ‘murder’. The police aren’t making much progress in their hunt for the killer until he appears to make a mistake: Alison Willetts is found alive and D.I. Tom Thorne believes this error will enable them to track him down. But it was the others who were his mistakes: he doesn’t want to take life, he just wants to put people into a state where they cannot move, cannot talk, cannot do anything but think. When Thorne, helped by the neurologist looking after Alison, starts to realise what he is up against he knows the case is not going to be solved by normal methods – before he can find out who did it he has to understand why he’s doing it.
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This is the very first Tom Thorne novel, recently re-published. It's about a young woman, Alison Willetts, who is in hospital after a stroke, paralysed and unable to communicate. By chance the police realise she’s survived a murder attempt and her injuries link her to other killings. Only Thorne believes the women who have died were ‘mistakes’ and the ‘killer’ actually wants to put people in a state where they cannot move, talk, or do anything but think. I found this absolutely gripping. There are chapters written in Alison’s voice which makes everything feel vividly real. No wonder the series has continued and now numbers 18 novels. Find this one if you can.
Review by: Feebs
