Bloodline

In Billingham's thrilling eighth crime novel featuring London police detective Tom Thorne (after Death Message), Thorne welcomes the distraction of a new case after his girlfriend, Det. Insp. Louise Porter, suffers a miscarriage. When Emily Walker is found beaten and suffocated with a plastic bag in her Finchley home, she appears to be the victim of a domestic dispute%E2%80%94until Thorne learns that a 23-year-old nurse was similarly beaten and suffocated three weeks earlier in Leicester City. Thorne and his team discover that both women's mothers were murdered 15 years earlier by psychopath Raymond Garvey, who killed seven women in four months and later died in prison of a brain tumor. As the body count rises, it's obvious a copycat killer is now targeting the children of Garvey's victims. Thorne's private struggles to process the loss of his unborn child and snippets from the lives of the present-day killer's victims lend poignancy. Billingham continues to captivate with equal parts suspense, deduction, and heart. (July)