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Type of bind: Mass Market Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 813
EAN num: 9780060560867
ISBN number: 006056086X
Label: Avon
Manufacturer: Avon
Quantity: 1
Page Count: 432
Printing Date: June 01, 2005
Publishing house: Avon
Release Date: May 24, 2005
Sale Popularity Level: 320805
Studio: Avon
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Product Description:
The very first corpse was found hooded, bound, and naked, kneeling on a bare mattress in a seedy hotel room. This was no ordinary murder but rather the work of a killer driven by something special, something spectacular. The fact that the dead man was a convicted rapist recently released from prison only increases the bizarre nature of the gruesome crime ... and the police's reluctance to apprehend the perpetrator. It's the body count that troubles Detective Inspector Tom Thorne, as brutal slaying follows brutal slaying, each victim more deserving than the last. Though he has no sympathy for the dead, Thorne knows he must put an end to a cruelly calculating vigilante's bloody justice before time runs out -- and a horrifically efficient serial killer targets a life worth fighting for.
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Rated by buyers -
Mark Billingham, Lazybones (Morrow, 2003)
Morose wisecracking detective Tom Thorne is back in stand-up comic Billingham's third police procedural slash mystery, Lazybones, and his luck just isn't getting any better. This time, there's a serial killer preying on rapists who have recently been released from prison. And we plunge into a meditation on a classic cop conundrum: what do you do when someone out there is basically doing your job for you? How hard do you try to catch someone who's only killing criminals? To complicate matters, the side effect of the killer rubbing a bit of salt into the cops' wounds at the very first murder scene is that Thorne must face an even tougher challenge: a very first date.
If you've encountered Billingham's spry, witty novels before, you know about what to expect here; Thorne is as dry and jaded as ever, as much as he tries not to be. His team are all wiseacres who hate that they love their jobs, and most of them are chock full of personal baggage that bleeds into the story. The characters are a lot of fun, and Billingham keeps us interested with snappy writing and the odd plot twist here and there. Yeah, I saw the big reveal coming (half of it, anyway), but only a few pages beforehand; Billingham does a fine job of keeping the tendrils of who-is-suspect-and-who-isn't sufficiently convoluted.
The Tom Thorne books are a great deal of fun. If you're a mystery fan and haven't tried them yet, I highly recommend giving the very first one (Sleepyhead) a go and seeing how you like them. I do. Immensely. ****
Rated by buyers -
I'm guessing that the 'Lazybones' in question refers to D.I Thorne himself as he seems to be sleeping (albeit without a mattress!) for most of this case.
That said, his distractions also made him very human as all of us must surely have had times where we're not totally focused on our jobs and needed a bit of a wake up call to get us motivated again.
This book got better as it got closer to the end as it was a far slower read for me than Sleepyhead and Scaredy Cat, Billingham's very first two books featuring Tom Thorne. The story was a good one though and I liked the way we had flashbacks to 1975/76 as well as to the killer's thoughts now. Not as gripping as I'd hoped however.
Rated by buyers -
Mark Billingham was born and brought up in Birmingham. Having worked for some years as an actor and more recently as a TV writer and stand-up comedian his very first crime novel was published in 2001.
Though still occasionally working as a stand-up comic, Mark now concentrates on writing the series of crime novels featuring London-based detective Tom Thorne. Mark lives in North London with his wife and two children.
For any new readers who have not read any of Mark Billingham's Tom Thorne books, you are missing a real treat. Start reading them now, I am sure you will not be disappointed.
This story puts DI Tom Thorne in a strange position. Men are being brutally murdered shortly after leaving prison but it is difficult for Thorne to put his heart and soul into catching the killer. Why? Because all the men that have been killed are convicted rapists.
All the men have been written to while in prison, presumably by a woman or someone pretending to be a woman, wanting to befriend them Shortly after being released they are found brutally murdered. Somewhere, something in past is linked with these killings, but finding out what it is is not going to be easy . . .
Rated by buyers 
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LAZYBONES (Police Proc-Tom Thorne-England-Cont) - VG
Billingham, Mark - 3rd in series
Little, Brown, 2003, UK Hardcover - ISBN number: 0316724939
First Sentence: 13 March Dearest Dougie, I'm sorry about this being another typed letter, but as I explained before, it's difficult for me to write to you from home, so I do it at work when the boss isn't looking, or in my lunch hour (like today!) or whatever.
When the brutally murdered body of an ex-con, just released for rape, is found, DI Tom Thorne and his fellow officers need to investigate the present, and the past, to find the killer. The stakes get higher with a second murder and a third. Trying to start a new relationship and worrying about his father's health, Thorne doesn't expect this to be a care that may cost him his life.
This book started off a bit slow and I wasn't certain quite what was going on or how it fit together. It didn't take long, however, before I was completely absorbed in the story. Billingham creates visual pictures. While Thorne is the protagonist and you do get to know more about him in this book, the supporting characters are fully dimensional to where it almost reads as an ensemble cast. The plot is built like a jigsaw puzzle with pieces coming into place one-by-one until the last tragic and frightening piece creating the whole picture. This series has grown on me, but this is the best I've read so far and I'm looking forward to the next.
Rated by buyers -
The pace of this Thorne mystery/thriller novel is not quite as fast as I would like, and I must agree with another reviewer who said the personal life details slow the book's march toward ultimate revelation somewhat. (I also struggled a bit with the language in parts because I wasn't familiar with some of the Brit-isms; however, I quickly became accustomed to them and to the pace.)
Those factors didn't stop me from enjoying the novel, though. I really liked this, my introduction to Thorne (note: it's not the very first book in the series, but it's the very first one I've been able to get my hands on locally). Like most interesting protagonists, he's someone whose psyche will have to be revealed a bit at a time because there's so much going on there. He comes to us a burdened, somewhat-ornery, driven man, and it will be the work of several novels (hopefully a whole slew of them) to really pick him apart and understand him.
That's okay with me, as I like what I've read thus far.
This book deals with the murders of various sex offenders. If you don't like graphic descriptions, stay away from this one, as it does provide several paragraphs that made me blanch. That didn't detract from my appreciation, however. I tend to think that sugarcoating stuff or not describing it at all is a cop-out, and the description here is meant to advance our understanding of the killer and of Thorne and the other people around him. In other words, it's not gratuitously graphic, this novel.
The secondary characters are intriguing as well. I like the way Billingham switches back and forth, giving us insight into the lives of more than just Thorne (although he gets the lion's share of the description). We learn about Holland and Stone, whose private lives are interesting in their own right. We also get the past history of the murderer right along with what's currently going on in his/her mind. What this does, though, this moving back and forth from Thorne to the killer to Thorne's colleagues, is fragment the reader's attention somewhat, and at times I found myself reading ahead a bit because I feared losing my concentration.
Various things are brought up in this novel that you might find appealing and/or intriguing: Alzheimer's and its effect on the loved ones who are slowly watching their parents lose their connections to memory and reality; the hidden crap in our lives that we don't allow others to see; the real and understandable fears men face when confronted with fatherhood; the relationship yo-yo where we want someone in our lives at the precise same time that we just can't be bothered to do what it takes to have that person there; the mistakes that cops make simply because they're human (and how those mistakes affect their own frame of mind).
Interesting stuff!
Overall, this is a good very first effort. I have another book in this series, The Burning Girl, to read next, and I'm hoping that I'm not ruining things by moving non-sequentially through the series.
Enjoy!
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