Scaredy Cat

This is a 2nd novel from Mark Billingham featuring London DI Tom Thorne--there are over a dozen in the series!! When two women are both found strangled on the same day, a serial killer is assumed. But when these murders are tied to two earlier stabbings that took place on the same day but several miles apart, it appears  there may be more than one killer at work. Each time a pair of victims turns up, one is dispatched in a much more macabre fashion than the other. We find out the back story of a man who was both protected and terrorized by a psychopath starting in grade school and this same person, now an adult, has come back to run and ruin his life again. When the "puppet" botches one of his assigned murders, he turns himself into the police, who decide to keep this news out of the press in hopes of flushing out the more dangerous killer. But there are some problems beginning to emerge on Thorne's team that will play out in fatal fashion. Tightly written, but difficult to hook into the characters. Not a repeat author for me, although I am going to check out the Sky TV series that is based on this book (reviewed by the NYT). Favorably reviewed by Kirkus, Publishers Weekly, and numerous British papers including The Guardian.