Death Message
Detective Tom Thorne, No 7

By Mark Billingham

        Death Message: When a policeman comes to your door to inform you that someone close to you has died. This is the last thing a family wants to hear... or perhaps see.

Detective Tom Thorne has begun to receive death messages but not in the normal way. Someone is sending pictures to his cell phone. These are pictures of obviously dead men.
Tom must discover who these people are, who is killing them and why the pictures are being sent to him. Then the killer ups the ante. He begins sending pictures of living people - people who soon become victims.

Tom discovers that the dead men are all members of a notorious biker’s gang - the Black Dogs - and have a connection to a serial killer, Marcus Brooks, who he put in prison many years ago for the murder of the Black Dogs’ leader. The man claims he was set up. What is the reason for the deaths now, and how can he stop them?

Fingerprints point to a newly released con who was in prison with Marcus, a man whose girlfriends and young son were ran over and killed by a member of the Black Dog gang. How do you stop a man who has nothing to live for?

Mark Billingham has written seven prior books staring Detective Tom Thorne and has won a faithful following of readers. He uses characters which are real and likable and puts them in some not so likable situations.
I enjoyed this book and look forward to many more.