The Burning Girl

Some fires never go out . . . X marks the spot and when that spot is a corpse s naked back and the X is carved in blood, DI Tom Thorne is in no doubt that the dead man is the latest victim of a particularly vicious contract killer. It s morbid and messy but it s a mystery with plenty of clues. This is turf warfare between North London gangs. Organised crime boss Billy Ryan is moving into someone else s patch, and that someone is not best pleased. Thorne s got plenty on his plate when he agrees to help out ex-DCI Carol Chamberlain rake through the ashes of an old case that has come back to haunt her. Schoolgirl Jessica Clarke was turned into a human torch twenty years ago. Now, Gordon Rooker, the man she put away for the crime, is up for possible release, and it seems there s a copycat at large. Or perhaps it s someone trying to `right a few wrongs. For Jessica Clarke was the victim of mistaken identity. The intended target was the daughter of a gangland boss, a woman who would grow up to marry a man named Billy Ryan ... For Thorne, what starts as a tenuous link becomes two pieces of the same puzzle. Past and present gradually fuse together to form a new, and very nasty riddle. One that involves more killings, protection rackets, human cargoes, and a murderous family with no values except gain at any price. And when an X is carved on his front door, Tom Thorne knows that the smouldering embers of a long dead case are about to erupt into flames&