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Those who have carefully followed the career of Mark Billingham and consider him their discovery are getting a little jealous of the popular acclaim his books are receiving. But it was only a matter of time before the reading public caught on as to just how good Billingham is. Lifeless is another demonstration of his burgeoning talent.

DI Tom Thorne is on a downward slide of his career. Finding it hard to deal with bereavement (his father has recently died) and swingeing criticism of his professional work, he finds himself obliged to take gardening leave. But this onerous situation isn't to last. Three homeless people on the streets of London have been kicked to death, their bodies found with a £20 note pinned to the chest. And an unlikely redemption beckons for Thorne, as he plunges into the grim world of Britain's underclass, with its rules and regulations (quite as inflexible as those of the ordinary society the homeless have rejected). Thorne discovers that there is a grim synchronicity between the murder victims and those who carried out a grisly crime 15 years ago. The structure of Lifeless allows Billingham to take both his protagonist and the reader into a truly dark universe.