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Sunday, September 18, 2016

Die of Shame by Mark Billingham

Author: Mark Billingham
Publisher: Atlantic Monthly Press
Date of publication: June 2016

Every Monday evening, six people gather in a smart North London house to talk about shame. A respected doctor, a well-heeled housewife, a young male prostitute . . . they could not be more different. All they have in common is a history of addiction. But when one of the group is murdered, it quickly becomes apparent that someone else in that circle is responsible. The investigation is hampered by the strict confidentiality that binds these individuals and their therapist together, which makes things difficult for Detective Inspector Nicola Tanner, a woman who can appreciate the desire to keep personal matters private. If she is to find the killer, she will need to use less obvious means. The question is: What could be shameful enough to cost someone their life? And how do you find the truth when secrets, lies, and denial are second nature to all of your suspects?

Die of Shame ended up being just an OK read for me.  It's told in two timelines, "then" and "now"  It's essentially about the murder of a woman who belonged to a therapy group for addicts.  The "then" gives us a glimpse into each erson in the group and their interactions with each other.  The Now deals with the police investigation.  

The reason ths was just OK was the pace.  There was a lot of things that were kind of unnecessary so it really dragged out the story.  I almost DNF'd it but I wanted to find out what happened to Heather.  There is a long list of suspects and all of them had motive.  I will say that I didn't figure it out until that end, so that almost made up for the slowness of the story.  I haven't read anything by this author before, so I'm not sure if it's the norm or not.  I have seen that he has a detective series out, so I might check that out at some point.

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