Their Little Secret

Billingham’s outstanding 16th procedural featuring Det. Insp. Tom Thorne (after 2018’s The Killing Habit) finds Thorne on duty with a team responsible for assessing whether sudden deaths are suspicious when Philippa Goodwin jumps in front of a train in the London Underground. CCTV images make it clear that no one was near Philippa when she took her fatal leap, but Thorne is driven to look further. Though Philippa didn’t leave a note, her older sister suggests a possible motive for her suicide—dismay over being bilked of a large sum of money by the man she’d been dating, who called himself Patrick Jennings. Despite Jennings bearing only moral responsibility for Philippa’s death, Thorne persists in investigating him, an obsession that bears fruit when another death linked to Jennings occurs. Alternating sections focused on a single mother who may become Jennings’s next target raise the ante. The twisted plot unfolds gradually, with a maximum of suspense. Billingham never strains credulity in this thoughtful page-turner. Agent: David Forrer, Inkwell Management. (June)