Time of Death (Tom Thorne Novels)

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This is a question that bothers us as well and, as the truth is revealed, we are rewarded with a novel that isn’t just an exciting crime puzzle but also a complex and sensitive investigation into some very dark places.

Linda and her children are put through hell on earth and it’s this which takes the novel into more unusual territory. This leaves Tom at a loose end and he just can’t resist carrying out his own investigation – a true busman’s holiday. When it’s splashed all over the press that family man Stephen Bates has been arrested, Helen and her partner Tom Thorne head to the flooded town to support Bates’ wife ­ an old school friend of Helen¹s ­ living under siege with two teenage children and convinced of her husband’s innocence.When it's splashed all over the press that family man Stephen Bates has been arrested, Helen and her partner Tom Thorne head to the flooded town to support Bates' wife ­ an old school friend of Helen¹s ­ living under siege with two teenage children and convinced of her husband's innocence.

Yes, it did get better once Hendricks, Thorne's pathologist best mate, pitched up half way through and no, I can't say I've particularly taken to Helen, even though I now know much more about her. Unusually for a crime novel this book is as much about what happens to the family of a suspect when they are arrested as it is about the victims as well as the who, how and why element, and I really enjoyed it. I particularly liked the way the locals spoke, it felt very real and certainly they used phrases and words that people round here use all the time. Forty-three-year-old Stephen Bates a local man is questioned in connection with the abduction of Poppy Johnson and the disappearance of Jessica Toms.

Thorne is on unknown turf, he’s not even suppose to be involved in the case, and it’s Helen who initially seems to play a more prominent role as she comforts her old friend and tries to help the two troubled children.