Summaries and Customer Reviews are supplied by Amazon.com

Average Customer Rating:

not good	Customer Rating:
I have rated Mark billinghams' books as real page turners but this one, well I managed to get to page 60 with a bit of effort and had to put it down. I would rather have spent the £10 hardback money on half a book by Stuart MacBride. He is the guy to look for now. May be Marks next book will be good lets hope so. I think the only twist to this book is me paying the £10.Bring back D.I.Tom Thorn.

Soooo disappointed !!	Customer Rating:
Being a fan of mark Billingham - especially DI thorne - I was very excited about this book. But what a disappointment. It took me quite a while to get into the book but i persevered always thinking of the "breathtaking twist" - what twist? It leaves so many loose ends, such an anti climax - bring back DI THorne

In the Dark - Mark Billingham

Customer Rating:

Other reviewers have described the story itself - which is extremely good. The intrigue starts on the first page and is cleverly woven in later in the book. The pace does slow down in the middle but what's lost in pace gives value to the well drawn characters. The writing is excellent so much so that in reality I wanted one of the main characters to thrive when in reality he is a gang member selling drugs. The pace picks up to a quite a speed at the end and even though you may work out the twists towards the end, this doesn't detract from any enjoyment. I liked the Tom Thorne cameo and the snippet of information given which will be interesting when the next Tom Thorne novel comes out. I didn't feel that this had the same grittiness that comes across in the Thorne novels but that said, this is great and holds your interest throughout.

Not quite 5 stars

Customer Rating:

I have just finished this book, and being a fan of Billingham's "Thorne" novels I admit that I bought this thinking it was the next in the series, so was cautious that I may not enjoy it. However I was surprised to be drawn into the story very quickly and as a Mum, found it a refreshing approach to this type of story to have a pregnant woman as the main character, for me it was unusual but worked. I agree with the other reviews that I did find the ending a little disappointing as there seemed to be lots of unanswered questions, but as the storyline was pretty bleak I came to the conclusion that that's just life - if this is what Billingham intended then I like him even more! Definitely worth reading. PS: I cheered out loud when Thorne made an appearance.

Eh?

Customer Rating:

I thought this was rubbish if im honest. As the story of a pregnant woman dealing with loss and uncovering truths it was very well written. As a story of a young black guy brought up on an East london council estate, trying to support a family a make something of himself while all his friends turned to crime - it was very well written. But the book presents itself as something else entirely! The title and tag line In the darl - its where fear lives made me look twice because I love crime novels that verge on the border of horror - Some of Dean Koontz stuff where the villain are just so horrendous you wonder what they will do next. In fact the plot of this book is more like Midsomer Murders set in London gangland. The 'twist' at the end was rubbish. It was clear from about halfway through who was behind it and more or less why. But most frustratingly the ending felt about 20 pages too shirt. The main male character Theo's story gets resolved - though i didt like the way that happened but there we are. But Easy his sidekick and probably the one that you want to see get banged up/dealt with most is left as M.I.A who knows what happened to him? And to anyone else who read it - what's all the stuff about frank & Paul & Paula about? either i dont get it or its a really bad attempt to stick in a twist. It felt very contrived and ill-thought through when it suddenly gets revealed why paul & frank became friends because of Laura. The biggest disappointment of all is that up to the last 5 pages i was gripped, waiting for the big twist to be reveled etc and then suddenly it was over. I read Robert harris' The Ghost and spent about 300 pages being pretty bored before suddenly being completely blown away by the twists and turns in the last 20 pages. this was the opposite. I felt totally let down.