Description
Andy & Keith felt their larcenous plan was sound: a quick snatch & grab at a train station bathroom. They didn’t foresee the gruesome contents in their loot or the murderous nature of their intended mark. Andy is concerned enough to contact the police through a discrete friend. He leaves the briefcase with Detective Sergeant Declan Miller in hopes of freeing himself from future trouble. Declan Miller sees the pair of mutilated hands in the briefcase and knows there is an organized crime connection to the amputated appendages. Miller opts to hold onto the case to use it as leverage in learning information about his wife’s recent murder.
Unfortunately, this plan is as ill-conceived as Andy & Keith’s caper as a psychopathic hitman has begun a path of murderous mayhem to reclaim the briefcase. Miller must rely on more than his rapier wit in solving his latest case.
Mark Billingham is more than adept in penning a clever detective novel as his past work(“Tom Thorne” series) has illustrated. Whereas Thorne can be brooding and methodical, Miller is idiosyncratic but also engaging. Miller is a flawed man, yet a cunning copper who enlivens every scene he’s in. Billingham has written another exceptional mystery novel.
