Good as Dead

I have read a few Tom Thorne books and I like this character. Tom is a tough, no-nonsense cop wth an extreme sense of justice. He is never afraid to push things to the limit to get his man so to speak. This book is about a hostage takig but the reason behind the hostage-taking is that of a grieving father trying to prove that his son did not kill himself while he was incarcerated in a juvenile detention centre. This father places the onerous task on Thorne to prove that his son's death was not a suicide. While Tom is busy trying to find out this information, the hostage situation is playing out and we get glimpses into what is going on within the building-a distraught father with a gun, an off-duty police officer and a bank employee, show more all thrown together into an impossible situation. The twist is the reason why this boy's "suicide" occurred in the first place. Tom discovers the truth behind all the lies and shakes up the justice system in London in the process. And he does it in the usual bull in a china shop Thorne fashion. This book is wonderfully written and Billingham, in my opion, should find himself in with the likes of other very well-known procedural writers such as Reginald Hill, Elizabeth George and Ian Rankin. show less

I have been an ardent fan of Mark Billingham from book one in his Detective Tom Thorne series. The Demands is the tenth offering in this British crime series.

Detective Sergeant Helen Weeks stops regularly into Javed Akhtar's corner shop for her morning paper and gum. Akhtar has just chased some young hooligans out of his store when he abruptly turns, locks the door on Helen and a male customer....and pulls a gun. Helen and Stephen are now his hostages.

His demands? For Detective Tom Thorne to investigate his son Amin's death while in custody. It was ruled suicide but Akhtar doesn't believe it.

Thorne is in a race against time - and an unstable man - to re investigate a closed case.

Why do I enjoy this series so much? Billingham always show more comes up with an arresting plot that provides some unexpected turns. The tension ratchets higher as Thorne discovers truths that Akhtar may not want to hear. We are privy to the drama in the shop through Helen's eyes. Helen has appeared in a previous book and is another strongly drawn character I was glad to see return. Billingham's plot also includes some relevant social commentary.

But of course the real draw is Tom Thorne. Thorne is ornery, obstinate and driven to solve his cases at almost any cost. This lands him on a fine line between right and wrong many times. His single mindedness has cost him in many ways, both professionally and personally. But his persistence usually pays off.

I loved the ending and cannot wait for the next installment in this gritty, gripping series

Who else is reading and recommending Mark Billingham? Michael Connelly, Lee Child and Gillian Flynn. And me! show less

In Mark Billingham's The Demands, Detective Sargent Helen Weeks is a new mom whose life has already been touched by personal violence with the murder of her child's father. When teenage thugs harass a local newsagent, Javed Akhtar, she hesitates when it comes to getting involved- hoping he can resolve the issue without her help. Little does she know that the newsagent, a grieving father, has an agenda of his own. It involves holding her and another customer hostage while demanding that Detective Tom Thorne investigate the alleged suicide of his son in prison. Thorne races to find answers for Akhtar before either of the hostages can come to harm.

Sigh. I have found another mystery series to add to the growing list of detective series show more where I have some catching up to do. Thorne is pretty much all that both women and men love in their hero detective. He's smart, doesn't play by all the rules and he cares about the people involved in his cases - he wants to find justice for them. I also got the feeling that he was probably pretty easy on the eyes. Never a bad thing.

Anyway, the case is complex and Billingham touches upon ethnic and religious tensions in London as Akhtar is convinced that the country to which he has dedicated his life has rushed to the easy conclusion in the death of his son. There is definitely evidence of discrimination as Thorne re-investigates all the angles of the altercation that led Akhtar's son to be imprisoned in the first place, but other troubling angles arise in which privilege and sexuality play important roles. Accompanying the tense hostage scenes and the action of the developing investigation are the interior lives of both Thorne and Weeks. Thorne is pondering the aftermath of his latest failed relationship and Weeks is still lost and grieving over her own partner's death before they were able to resolve their troubled relationship.

While it's hard to feel empathy for a man who would take hostages to achieve his aims, Billingham manages to make Akhtar understood, if not championed. The Demands is deftly plotted and well-written and makes for a read that is both thoughtful and suspense filled. Readers who are new to the Thorne series will have no problems jumping right in. Highly Recommended. show less

You may also read my review here: http://www.mybookishways.com/2012/07/the-demands-mark-billingham.html

Detective Helen Weeks walks into the convenience store she’s been coming to for ages, her mind on her 1 year old son, and the workday ahead, when she’s abruptly taken hostage, along with another customer, by the convenience store owner, Akhtar. This is a man she’s talked to every day for months, exchanging pleasantries, and Helen is baffled as to why he’d want to hold two people at gunpoint. He doesn’t want money. He doesn’t want fame. He wants to speak with Tom Thorne, and until he does, Helen and her fellow captive have no chance at freedom. See, a year earlier, Akhtar’s son was attacked by a group of boys with knifes. show more He turned the tables, and stabbed one of his attackers to death. Given a sentence above and beyond what anyone expected, he supposedly killed himself while in the infirmary 8 weeks earlier. Akhtar knows his son didn’t kill himself, and wants Tom Thorne to find out who did. Until then, Helen Weeks will be his hostage. At first Tom thinks it’s certainly a suicide, but as he digs deeper, he realizes it’s so much more, and time is of the essence.

It’s no secret Tom Thorne is one of my fave detectives, and he’s back in fine form in The Demands. It’s a powder keg waiting to burst inside that convenience store and Mark Billingham has a talent for garnering sympathy for people doing terrible things, as in the case of Javed Akhtar. His son is dead and determined to be a suicide, but he knows it’s not true. Obviously, holding two people hostage is not the way to go about things, but he feels he’s done everything right throughout his life, been an honest man, and that the justice system that he once believed in has failed him. He’s desperate, and his grief and terror over his own actions is constantly on display. Helen Weeks is fighting her own demons as well, still mourning the death of her son’s father, and fellow cop, Paul. All she can think about is getting home to her son, and will do anything to do so, even if it means keeping secrets that will come back to bite her. The body count is piling up as Tom sniffs around, but his willingness to color outside the lines serves him particularly well in this case. Sadly, he uncovers something far more tragic than a random attack and killing in self defense, and it involves some pretty powerful folks, but that never stopped Tom before, so why should this be different? The clock was ticking here, and it gave an immediacy to the events that really kept me turning the pages. I just had to know what happened next. Fine writing and explosive revelations rounded out another great entry into the Thorne series, and The Demands actually ends on a bit of a high note for our hero. I can’t wait until the next book! show less

Good as Dead is the 10th book in the Tom Thorne series of police procedurals by Mark Billingham. This book is meant to be a thriller as the clock ticks down on Thorne as he tries to solve a murder case that was set off by a hostage situation.

One of the hostages is Helen Weeks, a young mother and a policewoman. She was involved when she stepped into her local news agent’s one morning on her way to work. She and another were taken by Javed Akhtar, the owner of the shop who demanded that Tom Thorne look into the death of his son who died in a young offender’s prison putting Thorne in a race against time to solve the case before Akhtar loses his patience.

As Good As Dead is a solid story but I did feel that the author could have amped show more the tension up further as some of the police outside the shop were eager to rush in with guns blazing. But it was a treat to catch up with Tom Thorne and his cronies again after some time away from the series. show less

I thought this was quite good - a worthy addition to the series, if not, perhaps, the best of the bunch.

The setup seems a rather ho-hum affair: a shopkeeper suddenly snaps and shuts down his shop with two hostages held at gunpoint within. His price for their freedom: proof of his son's murder, not suicide, at a local Young Offenders' Institution. Tom Thorne to deliver.

At first, there appears to be little at stake, but the bodies do indeed begin to mount up, and the pacing is perfect.

What makes this especially stimulating reading, though, is its exposure of the casual corruption we imagine pervades the top of the British establishment, and what somebody else in a different context once called the banality of evil: it certainly is banal, show more but it is also, just as certainly, evil.

A novel seemed to start unpromisingly in fact gathers steam and powers towards a terrific climax. show less

Race, class, gender . . . seems like Billingham was trying to get a little bit of everything into the latest entry in the Tom Thorne series. It's all bound up in a page-turning hostage situation, which is spun around a suicide-or-not? mystery involving a teenage prisoner. Needless to say, between all these themes and the two plot lines (the "suspense" plot and the "mystery" plot), it's a pretty tightly packed novel. It will keep you turning the pages, but, even as this happens, Billingham swiftly closes off avenues of possibility in the murder plot, quickly narrowing the number of possible suspects and thus not making the outcome a tremendous surprise.

The novel raises a lot of questions about justice and fairness, equality and show more opportunity, and explotation. In such a short span of time, it does raise more questions than it answers, but ambiguity is not really a bad thing-- it prevents the novel from becoming a moral fable, which would have just been preachy and tiresome. Nonetheless, there is an overriding sense that Thorne is the "good guy" cop pitched against society's evils, going with his gut and doing his best to redress society's wrongs.

This would probably read well as a stand-alone in the Thorne series, because the supporting cast does not come into play much (which was a minus for me, as I enjoy these other characters). Newcomers to the Thorne series could easily jump in here, though I'd still probably recommend beginning somewhere nearer the beginning unless you particularly like high-suspense narratives. show less