Lifeless (Tom Thorne Series)

Tom Thorne's career is on the skids. Having seriously crossed the line on his last case and depressed over the recent suspicious death of his father, the once ambitious police detective has been reduced to pushing papers . . . and is being encouraged to take a prolonged leave of duty. But someone is stalking the city's most destitute citizens. Three homeless men have recently been kicked to death, each brutalized corpse discovered with a banknote pinned to its chest. With nothing to lose, Thorne volunteers to try to find the killer—taking to the streets he knows so well from his days as beat policeman and as a homicide detective, but this time joining the squalid ranks of life's rejects. In this harsh and harrowing netherworld, with its own rules and moral codes, a shocking link between the brutal crimes and a fifteen-year-old atrocity could end up costing Thorne what little life he has left. "To friends and enemies alike, it looks as though Tom Thorne's career is on the skids. Depressed by the recent loss of his father and berated for seriously overstepping the mark on his last case, he's been encouraged to take "gardening" leave. For am ambitious detective - especially one without so much as a window box - it's a fairly dire situation." "But not as dire as the situation for London's homeless. Three men, sleeping rough on the streets, have been murdered, each victim kicked to death and found with a banknote pinned to his chest. Were these men just random alcoholics, junkies, and jetsam? Or were they targeted for a reason?" "With nothing to lose, Thorne sets out to find the killer. It helps that he's well acquainted with the streets, once as a policeman on the beat, but now as one of life's rejects. In a harsh and harrowing netherworld, with its own rules and moral codes, Thorne discovers the horrifying link between the homeless victims and the perpetrators of a fifteen-year-old atrocity." "Those who know are saying nothing. But the word on these streets is that the killer is a cop. A policeman, it seems, was sniffing around long before Thorne came on the scene." The latest in the Tom Thorne series, Lifeless is the story of a man as driven to find a ruthless killer as he is to bring about his own self-destruction. Tom Thorne's career is on the skids. Having seriously crossed the line on his last case and depressed over the recent suspicious death of his father, the once ambitious police detective has been reduced to pushing papers... and is being encouraged to take a prolonged leave of duty. But someone is stalking the city's most destitute citizens. Three homeless men have recently been kicked to death, each brutalized corpse discovered with a banknote pinned to its chest. With nothing to lose, Thorne volunteers to try to find the killer -- taking to the streets he knows so well from his days as beat policeman and as a homicide detective, but this time joining the squalid ranks of life's rejects. In this harsh and harrowing netherworld, with its own rules and moral codes, a shocking link between the brutal crimes and a fifteen-year-old atrocity could end up costing Thorne what little life he has left. To his friends, his foes and even to himself it looks as though Tom Thorne's career is on the skids. On his last case he had seriously over-stepped the mark, and now gardening leave has been suggested and all he has to tend is a window box. So when it appears someone is targeting London's homeless community it seems perfectly natural for Thorne to take a step nearer to the gutter and go undercover amongst them. He blends into the sometimes invisible community easily - too easily perhaps - but the information he gleans quickly proves that this is no random killer, it is someone with a very distinct purpose and a very specific list of victims, only the team supporting Thorne from the outside don't have the key to motive or identity. Then somehow the fact that a policeman is working under cover becomes public knowledge