Reviewed by Andrée Walch 
Mark Billingham has already written several DI Tom Thorne books, but you don’t need to have read the other ones to be able to get into Good as Dead.
The story starts in a news shop where the owner flips out after some youngsters have hassled and abused him for who knows how many times. He shuts down his shop and keeps the two customers who were unfortunate enough to be there at that moment as hostages.
He knows that his female hostage is a police officer, Helen Weeks, and requests that she contacts DI Tom Thorne (they know each other as Thorne investigated the murder of her husband a year ago), the officer who brought his eldest son to prison, where he seemingly committed suicide. Mr Akhtar, the shop owner, will free the hostages as soon as DI Thorne has found out what really happened to his son, because he is convinced that something is not right in this case.
The book is well written, it was difficult to put the book down – at least for the first half of the story. And then suddenly I completely lost interest, I simply disconnected. I have tried to find the reason for this but I was unable to figure it out.
All in all it starts well, even if the plot is a little bit far-fetched, I think, but then it becomes boring. At least in my eyes. I started speed-reading because I wanted to know how the story ends. And there comes another point which I found totally without interest, especially as there was nothing particular which might hint into this direction. *Spoiler Alert* Did DI Thorne really have to end up in Helen Weeks’ bed? It does nothing for the story, it’s unnecessary, but perhaps Mark Billingham plans to write the next story with this tandem?
The praise on the covers is considerable but in my opinion it’s far over the top. Good As Dead is not bad but it is not brilliant either, I have already read lots of far better detective stories. I don’t think that I will become a fan of DI Tom Thorne.
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