Mark Billingham - Sleepy Head
The author is (or at least was, at the time of publication) a British stand-up comedian, who was pretty good, if I remember correctly. He still does the occasional stand-up, but since his success as an author, he tends to concentrate on writing.
All his books so far (there have been six, of which this is the first) centre on North London and Detective Inspector Tom Thorne. Thorne is a short, wide, forty-something, divorced, lives alone.
He is abrasive - sometimes - and does not suffer fools gladly. In this particular case, which involves several murders and an apparently unconnected 25-yr old stroke victim, he becomes totally obsessed on one man as the perpetrator of the crimes. A little of this obsession stems from a case he was involved in 15 years earlier, that ended tragically. We don’t find out why this has the effect it does until the end of the book, so I won’t spoil it for you.
The victims are all young women, apparently fit and well before their deaths. One, who lies in a hospital bed with Locked-in Syndrome, appears to have been a mistake - the killer didn’t finish her off. But it turns out that this is how all the victims were meant to be; this really gets Thorne’s attention.
Dramatic tension is maintained from start to finish, making it a real page-turner. Through it all, we hear the voice of the stroke victim, occasionally the voices of the dead victims and the voice of the killer - and it isn’t who you think it is!
Thorne becomes ‘involved’ with the doctor treating the bedbound victim, who has had a previous relationship with the man that Thorne suspects of being the killer.
Thoroughly recommended. The seventh book is apparently due out in August 2007.
First published in 2001. Has been reprinted several times since.
Available from Alibris.co.uk and Abebooks.