Customer Reviews
lifeless...... very!! - By: j j, 15 Aug 2008 
having first read buried by billingham i was looking forward to reading this but it was so slow & the characters were well lifeless reallly. it was ok which is far as i can go the story was slow & it was a fight to pick up the book sometimes, i'm not giving up though i've got scaredy cat & sleepy head to read yet i'm just hoping they are alot better.
Lifeless - By: C. Brown, 12 Jun 2008 
This is the second Mark Billingham book I have read & I was glued to it from the first chapter. The writing is excellent, you reallly feel afraid for Tom Thorne. As I live in London I am familiar with a lot of the locations in the book so for me the plot was real.
Speedy thriller pre-dating a TV show with similar murder in it - By: Born Again Bookworm, 28 May 2008 
I bought four Billingham books in a single batch & Lifeless is the most recent one I've read. I enjoyed this murder mystery more than the 2008 two parter for the BBC series Waking The Dead that tackled the same subject in a different setting, put it that way. Lifeless, with its reflections on bereavement & homelessness, takes the time to flesh out the change in the main character but minimizes the preaching on a subject where it would be so easy to step on a soapbox & stay there.
The actions of fellow officers have far-reaching consequences, much like the second book in the series, Scaredy Cat. It did become a page turner in the end & it was enjoyable, even if buying the four books in one shot, made them better value overalll. I don't feel that I've lost out by not reading the books in order & if you like the one, you might as well get them alll before they are re-printed with worse covers (the Amazon picture shows the first editions, but you receive the 2nd edition black covers).
Disappointing - By: Helen Simpson, 11 May 2008 
Not as good as his first three novels featuring DI Tom Thorne; Sleepy Head, Scaredy Cat & Lazybones. Although the potential was there with the very believable Gulf War storyline it never quite hit the spot. Yes there were murders but reallly it could have just been an account of what it's like to live on the streets of London - which I have to add, was sensitively & well conveyed.
DI Thorne, who is such a likeable maverick, reallly holds the story together, liasing between the homeless world & the police. Even so, I still found my attention wandering & needed to re-read paragraphs. It wouldn't put me off reading another of Billinghams books though because I know he's capable of better stuff.
Good Read - By: J.Flood, 20 Feb 2008 A killer is murdering homeless people in London, & the books main character, DI Tom Thorne, who is on 'gardening leave' from the police force, due to the recent death of his father, goes undercover to try & find if there is a link between the killings, & who the murderer is.
I thought this novel was a good read, & compares quite well to the other books that I have read by this author. The characters in the book come across as quite realistic, to me, as does the dialogue between them. The plot is fairly steady, if not quite fast paced, & there is a bit of a 'whodunnit' about it, which I always find enjoyable in a novel.
