Scaredy Cat Edgy enough London crime! Says Mick .mp3 (3.62 MB)
Mark Billingham
Time Warner Paperbacks, 2003http://www.markbillingham.com/
The Bright, Refined Psychopaths of Popular Fiction Can Kiss Our Asses
The paperback rack at the local supermarket is well stocked with titles from Mark Billingham's Detective Inspector Tom Thorne series. Having dipped into Paul Carson's Dublin, I decided to see how London-based crime compared.
Scaredy Cat follows a small band of detectives as they pursue the killers of several young women. Led by an ornery sonovabitch, they discover the roots of the murders intertwine with the love and cruelty of three childhood outcasts, twenty years past.
When I was trying to form a picture of DI Tom Thorne, the actor Trevor Eve kept crashing the auditions. That's not fair. Eve already has his own highly recommended cop show, Waking the Dead. He should have let some other cocky, independent middle-aged whitey play Tom Thorne, but who did I see in every one of the losing-the-temper-at-his-co-workers scenes? Trevor Eve. Who sympathetically convinced the freshly orphaned three year old to speak, with Shakespearean authority? Eve again. Greedy bastard.
Thorne's circle of cops contains interesting characters. They're younger and edgier than most. Thorne's best friend, for example, is a gay dude who is into piercing and cutting up dead bodies. There's also gratuitous cocaine use and one of the detectives is a bit of a ho. Scaredy Cat also delves into well-researched forensic gore and the dark, dark world of Johnny Cash. Johnny Cash? Yep, Johnny Cash.
Mark Billingham's other claim to fame comes from the stand-up comedy circuit, but Scaredy Cat contains less humor than I expected. Thorne's nemesis is the sharp corner of a desk in the incident room, sure enough, and there is an absolutely gag-worthy urban legend about the biscuits eaten in British public schools. That aside, Billingham keeps his worlds well divided. Carl Hiaasen and Janet Evanovich belong in a different rack altogether. Maybe even in a different store.
One complaint: the blurb on the back. A major twist is given away, straight out. "Mark Billingham's gripping thriller has a unique twist. In this mystery DI Tom Thorne is not in search of just a serial killer but two - working in tandem." Unique? Maybe to someone who's never heard of Kiss the Girls. I picked Scaredy Cat up because of the reviews, then spent the first wedge of chapters pissed off because I knew exactly what twist was coming.
Another complaint: the killer was easy to spot. The last half of Scaredy Cat centers around the question, "what colleague, privy to details of the investigation, is actually our twisted childhood killer all grown up?" It could go several ways, so the true identity keeps readers guessing. Linda La Plante has done the same, though not in her finest work.
Moan moan moan, complain complain complain.
The verdict: Mark Billingham's characters and approach are a step above most procedurals. The notion behind his latest installment, Lifeless, sounds interesting. I might pick that up next trip to the local supermarket. Or order it from markbillingham.com, where interesting information is well presented. There are even links to video clips of the author plugging his work. Cool stuff! But is it as cool as mickhalpin.com? NO!
Nowhere on Billingham's site can visitors find a pic of Joan Collins.
Twenty years ago, Critical Mick was a schoolyard outcast. But he did not grow up into a psycho like in Scaredy Cat. And he DEFINITELY never ate a public school biscuit.
|
