Mark Billingham's first stand alone novel begins with 5 teenagers joyriding and seemingly looking for a victim to shoot in a gang initiation.
A woman sees the teenagers car and becomes a victim. Shots are fired into her car and she crashes into a bus stop killing Paul Hopwood an off duty police officer.

Paul's girlfriend Helen Weeks is also a police officer and very pregnant. She wants to find answers to her fiance's death.
There is a major police investigation but the underworld people who believe Paul was a friend are also persuing the killers. This group is led by Frank Linnell who has the contacts to find out who was in the car that struck his friend. Frank wants to make them pay for what they did.
This is an intelligent story that moves between Helen's investigation, the guilf tidden teenager who reluctantly did the shooting and Paul.
As the teenage members of the gang are found and things happen we see that they are just teenagers who got into a gang and how that changed their lives.
The plot is well done and seemingly heads to an expected ending but Billingham gives the reader a surprise that no one could see coming.
This writer continues to impress.
Highly recommended. ( )

This is Billingham's first stand-alone thriller and I must confess to have been disappointed: he's an excellent writer and In the Dark is a thoroughly enjoyable page-turner, but I missed the quirky humour of his DI Tom Thorne novels.

By the way, DI Thorne does appear briefly in the book in what could be called a 'cameo role': he is referred to by his nickname, Spiky Bugger.

DS Sarah Ruston is eight months pregnant when her boyfriend DS Paul Hopwood is killed by what appears to be a random car acident. She soon realises he was keeping secrets not only from her but also his fellow police officers and clues abound suggesting he was crooked.

Sarah begins an investigation of her own and makes some surpising discoveries, the most shocking of which is that Paul's death was not an unfortunate mishap caused by a panicking driver shot at during a gang initiation ceremony - it was a well-planned murder...

Gang culture, poverty stricken council blocks in Lewisham, teenage killers, corrupt policemen, red herrings and twists and turns: an exciting read from an always reliable writer. ( )

Reviewed for Mystery Scene