Scaredy Cat by Mark Billingham

 

Tom Thorne has a new member on his team now that the crime divisions have been reorganized.  Sarah McEnvoy is new to the team and the area but seems to be fitting in to the Serious Crime team.  But fitting in has to happen fast because crime is never in short supply.  The most recent case is one that hits Thorne hard.  A woman is killed, strangled to death in her home and in front of her son, barely more than a toddler.  In a coincidence, another woman is found the same day, killed the same way and left in a tube station.

As the team investigates, they find another pairing of murders several months back.  Those two women were both stabbed.  Although the methods are different, the chances of pairs of murders, done the same way, on the same day, just doesn't seem likely to happen by chance.  The team realizes that they have a pair of murderers.

Although the murderers are killing at the same time, one is much more savage than the other.  Thorne realizes that like most pairs of killers, there is one who is leading the way and planning the murders and another who is doing his job according to instructions from the leader.  Is this a male/female pair as many of these duel killers are?  Are they men who recently found each other and created a new past time, or men who might have been friends from childhood, when the roles of leader and follower are created in friendships?  Even more important, can Thorne and his team find them before they kill again?

This is the second novel in the Tom Thorne series.   While this series has been a huge hit in England, where Billingham lives, it is not as well known in the United States, although it should be.  This is an intricate police procedural that delivers twists and turns.  The book explores the relationships between the various members of the team and the hierarchy that is concerned with numbers and the press.  There are now nineteen books in this series and I can't wait to continue to read about Thorne and his team.  This book is recommended for mystery readers.