The publication of a new Mark Billingham novel is always a cause for celebration and this one is no different. Well, it is different, actually. It marks the return of Billingham’s iconic London police detective Tom Thorne after an absence as the author launced a new series. The Thorne books are always good, and this one is no exception. It opens with the murder of four police officers and in the best tradition of the police procedural, pioneered by the late, great Ed McBain, shows in forensic detail how the killer is hunted. Unlike earlier Thorne books, this one is set in a police forced wracked by controversy, with serving offers charged with, and sometimes sentenced for, crimes such as rape and murder. This is not the police force of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Inspector Lestrade — incompetent, but basically a good copper. This is the Metropolitan Police of the mid-2020s, where serving officers like Wayne Couzens can murder innocent women. That’s the backdrop to this powerful story. Highly recommended.