Nineteen thrillers into his justifiably celebrated Detective Inspector Tom Thorne series (Bloodline; Their Little Secret), Mark Billingham is still showing up with his A game. What the Night Brings, another hard-charging, no-mercy police procedural, is written with verve, plotted with ingenuity, and spiked with the author's signature relief-valve humor.
The novel opens with Thorne, who works for the Met Police's Major Investigation Team, at the home of the murderous Nick Cresswell; Thorne is overseeing the man's arrest. Meanwhile, four uniformed officers stationed outside are poisoned with some doughnuts left in a box on a squad car along with an unsigned note that reads, "Thanks for everything you do!" Given the recent uptick in serious crimes committed by Met officers, it's not hard for Thorne's team to believe that the antagonist was acting on a grudge against the police. And yet signs point to an inside job: Otherwise, how would the killer have known that the cops would be outside Cresswell's place for the arrest?
The high stakes and low officer morale lend themselves to Billingham's customary bravura dialogue and character work; as Thorne and his colleagues go about their police business, they have heady and heated discussions about their jobs--"the Job," as they call it. While Billingham reserves space for wisecracks and editorials from the ornery Thorne, an unrepentant music snob ("Why was 'easy listening' always so bloody difficult?"), What the Night Brings harbors a degree of despair that feels new to the series. Given its long-standing pitilessness, that's saying something. --Nell Beram, author and freelance writer