In The Dark

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And within the first few pages I had to look when Mark Billingham wrote it, because it sounded a bit strange.

Billingham says: "We were working on the script for the third film (three TV episodes), all just moving ahead quite happily and unbeknown to us a new head of drama was coming in and she did not want to recommission anything her predecessor had done. I’ve never read Billingham before (although I know of his character Tom Thorne, who makes a cameo here), but I will be checking him out again. This week’s episode saw a lot more of Matt King’s idiosyncratic pathologist character, which injects just the right amount of comic relief while helping push the plot on a little too.When your stuff is being adapted and you get David Morrissey or MyAnna Buring you relax, because whatever they create will be great and it will have a wider audience than your books. Performing alongside Val McDermid, Chris Brookmyre, Stuart Neville, Doug Johnstone and Luca Veste, this band of frustrated rockers murders songs for fun at literary festivals worldwide. An investigation which leads her not only to a menacing Manchester crime boss, but to the drug-running gangs of a nearby sink estate. She soon finds out some rather shocking information about Paul and whether or not he was a corrupt cop.

We end with Helen giving birth and, still mourning the loss of Paul, it’s about as emotional and upsetting a labour scene as you’re likely to ever see on British television. Paul’s death, at the shaking hands of reluctant gangster Theo – played sensitively, if ever-so-slightly unconvincingly by Fisayo Akinade – was entirely accidental. But at a point where I was starting to think it was maybe getting a little dull and wondering how things would end, there's a sneaky little twist that threw away any thoughts of how the story may end and pushed it off in an unexpected direction.

Americans who think the bleak world George Pelecanos brings to life is limited to the nation's capital will find Billingham's atmospheric maze of London byways just as sprawling and squiggling with desperate cops and robbers. The Evening Herald – presumably Dublin – remarks “A story with a twist that I guarantee even veteran crime fiction aficionados won’t see coming. Because, as we read on, and are introduced to Helen, Paul, Easy, Theo, Kevin and Frank, among others, we don't learn enough of who they are. Her memories seem to feed an impulsiveness which might just have led to her infidelity in the first place.

However, it seems that this may have been a dodgy copper with a link to some shady characters, who are also out for revenge and aren't constrained by the same rules as the police. It was a lot of fun finding myself re-examining my memory and assumptions trying to figure what was going to happen next.But the pregnant woman gimmick feels a bit Fargo – or like the brilliant Comic Strip cop show spoof Detectives on the Edge of a Nervous Breakdown, where every detective cliché was present and correct! I’ve always enjoyed the way that Mark Billingham portrays the dark underbelly of London streetlife and this thrilling novel is another great example. It’s a sad story of random gang violence, but not, it seems, an uncommon one—except for a series of dark revelations. Gritty, fierce, and moving, here is a must-read for anyone who likes their crime fiction unflinching and unforgettable. And, - I don't know whether or not this has to do with the translation - but the writing style was simply painful.

I should add that this “veteran crime aficionado” doesn’t read many of these anymore because the plot devices become obvious after a while and I can pretty much guess the outcome about a third of the way in; this also had the plot device I hate worst, the amazing coincidence, the chance meeting that brings two main characters and storylines together. This is a used book - there is no escaping the fact it has been read by someone else and it will show signs of wear and previous use.It felt like Twattingham was saying "sure, you can have the candy in half an hour" and, after waiting patiently, he just ate it. One life is wiped out and three more are changed forever: the young man whose finger was on the trigger; an ageing gangster planning a deadly revenge, and the pregnant woman who struggles desperately to uncover the truth. A third interesting plotline involves a shadowy constructor who has his hands in a lot more but also his own ghosts to deal with.