Book review: Rush of Blood

Time for the latest Mark Billingham novel to make it to paperback, and it’s his second departure from the regular Tom Thorne series; and this time Thorne doesn’t even make a cameo appearance. Instead Rush of Blood goes for a different format entirely, following three British couples who met on holiday in Florida. Unlike most holiday friendships they actually follow through with the promise to keep in touch, and the book is structured around the dinner parties each couple hosts for the others over the course of a couple of months. The additional point of interest that keeps them together is that while in Florida, a mentally disabled teenage girl disappeared, later to be found dead. They think it’s just a gruesome anecdote but when a similar crime takes place in the UK it becomes apparent that one of them is responsible.

I really liked the format change here, I enjoy Billingham’s Thorne novels but it’s good for a writer to stretch himself and he’s done so successfully. There is a bit of a downside to having a plot that by its very nature means the reader has the suspects narrowed down to six right from the off, even if the detectives haven’t: With very good reasons to suspect everyone cropping up at various points in the story, inevitably the result feels like it was guessable. But he throws in a couple of sharp little twists around the reveal that make up for this, and the narrow field of suspects is balanced by getting more of a chance to get into all of their heads, as the couples discover that back at home they’ve got less in common than they thought, and see why people normally keep holiday friendships just there – and that’s before the police have got involved.

There’s also an interesting little touch to the glimpses we get into the investigation, as a trainee UK detective tries to make a name for herself by finding the British link to the case, but also seems to be developing a bit of a fixation on the American detective she’s never actually met. This plotline kind of fizzles out a bit disappointingly but does add a bit more texture to the investigations.