Time of Death — Mark Billingham

Reeling from a particularly difficult recent case, Tom Thorne is enjoying a Valentine's Day break with his girlfriend DS Helen Weeks in the picturesque English Cotswolds. But their romantic weekend is disturbed when they hear about an arrest made in Helen's hometown of Polesford, Warwickshire. Two young girl have been abducted, and the town has been overwhelmed by a media storm, the local hotels and pubs brimming over with journalists and police. The prime suspect in the case is the husband of an old school friend of Helen's, and Helen and Tom rush to Polesford to try to find out more. It is Helen's first time back home in twenty-five years, and she finds the town much changed, but old secrets and buried memories are lingering under the surface. As Helen faces up to a past she has tried desperately to forget, Thorne becomes convinced that, despite overwhelming evidence of the man's guilt, the police have got the wrong person. There is an extremely clever killer on the loose and a missing girl who Thorne believes might still be alive.

Brilliantly plotted and intensely gripping, "Time of Death" is a masterly thriller from one of England's best-loved crime writers and will keep readers guessing until the final page.