L'aveva seguita, era entrato in casa con lei, aveva respirato la sua paura. Poi, l'aveva strangolata. La sera stessa, in un altro punto della città, un'altra donna moriva allo stesso modo.La polizia non ha dubbi, nelle strade di Londra si muove un serial killer che uccide due volte, lo stesso che qualche mese prima aveva pugnalato a morte due donne, a poche ore di distanza l'una dall'altra. Ma Tom Thorne, geniale e scomodo detective della squadra investigativa, è perplesso. Qualcosa non quadra in quel terribile schema di morte. E avanza un'ipotesi terribile. Gli assassini potrebbero essere due. Due persone che uccidono in sincronia, allo stesso modo, nello stesso tempo. Per Thorne, quel caso diventa un'ossessione. Perché il vero assassino, il più pericoloso, è qualcuno che ha fatto della persuasione un'arte. Qualcuno che sa che la più letale delle armi è il terrore.
What do You think about Scaredy Cat (2015)?
I totally agree. The first one in the series was equally bad but with this I found myself not even following half of it. Given the positive reviews I was thinking that it was down to the narrator but not sure how much the 'story' would change if I had read the Kindle version...
—Frances
This was my very first Tom Thorne novel, having been pointed out to me by my wife while in a used book store one day. DI Thorne is absolutely brilliant and absolutely broken. He's not the traditional "Super Cop," who always gets his man, using only jis wits and his trusted sidekick. Nor is he the traditional "Anti-Hero," who manages to always get his man, despite having pissed off every one of his superiors, skirted the lime with Internal Affairs, and nearly succumbed to whatever addiction problem he uses to get away from it all. No, what set Tom Thorne apart from his contemporaries- and what sets Mark Billingham apart from his fellow writers- is that he is honest, and portrayed as such. He is burned out, he makes mistakes, he doesn't have all the answers, and constantly scrambles to find his footing aling with his team, who are all equally as flawed as himself. Certaiy, anyone even remotely acquainted with the detective genre will recognize familiar themes and plot devices strewn throughout Billingham's writing, but it's really the characters and their multitudinous trials and tribulations which drive the novel forward.
—Robert
2.5 stars. I thought Billingham's first book (Sleepyhead) was a great combination of grim, gritty police procedural and creepy, macabre medical thriller. It also included a nice twist on the hackneyed serial killer theme. All of this had me eager to jump on board with Scaredy Cat, but I ended up not really enjoying the ride. With the plot a little tired, the characters a little predictable, and the villain's identity too easy to figure out, I spent most of the book annoyed that the detectives weren't catching on to the obvious. I also found an aspect of the investigation involving a confessed murderer ludicrously contrived and unbelievable. I hope #3 provides a return to the standard set in Book 1.
—Jaime
