The Burning Girl by Mark Billingham

 

A gang war has broken out in the town where Thorne works.  There are the old school English gang and the new Indian gang.  Can the police step in before everything explodes?  Four men have also been murdered, their backs carved with a huge X.   Is this more of the gang rivalry or is a serial killer at work?

Everything seems to lead back to twenty years ago when a twelve year old girl was burned on her school playground.  She survived but the scars and life afterwards was so horrific that she killed herself later.  The ironic part is that the target wasn't even her; it was the English gang's leader's daughter.  Back then everyone assumed it was the second in command who hired it so that he could push out the leader and he did take command after the attack.  

But now the man who has been in prison for twenty years for the crime is saying that he never did it, that he knows who was behind it and will testify and let the police bring down the gang.  Can he be believed?

This is the fourth Tom Thorne book.  It is different as it portrays a police force in what is probably much more common in their work than the capture of serial killers.  Most cities have gangs and the police are in constant battle with them.  Thorne has a romance but like most of his romances, it seems doomed to be short term.  This book is recommended for mystery readers.