Sleepyhead (Tom Thorne Novels)

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Billingham’s flawless plotting and the steadily increasing sense of fear combine to make this one of the best debut novels of the year.Going from 0 to 60 in record time, his next book is on my must read list. Don’t make any plans for the weekend when you buy it – because you won’t be leaving the house until its finished Billingham's detective character Inspector Tom Thorne first appeared in his 2001 debut novel Sleepyhead. The character has since appeared in the majority of his works, except In the Dark, Rush of Blood, and Die of Shame (May 2016), in which Thorne has minor roles. Billingham claims to have imbued Thorne with many of his own characteristics, such as a birthday, a locale (London), and a "love of country music both alt and cheesy". [3] [11] Billingham has received nominations and awards related to all aspects of his various careers. What's That Noise (which he wrote and presented) won the 1995 Royal Television Society award for "Best Entertainment Programme", [9] while Knight School was nominated for the RTS's "Best Children's Drama" award two years running.

Scaredy Cat (Little, Brown & Company, July 2002), ISBN 0-316-85954-0; Time Warner UK, November 2002, ISBN 0-356-23206-9; William Morrow US, June 2003, ISBN 0-06-621300-2 An assured chiller. Disturbing and thrilling… with memorable characters and bundles of atmosphere. Britain now has its own forensic crime maestro. With Sleepyhead, Billingham leaps to the upper echelons of British crime fiction in a single bound. Dancing Towards The Blade" in Men From Boys by John Harvey (ed.) ( Arrow Books, September 2004), ISBN 0-09-946152-8 After three award-winning series, Billingham and Lloyd helped creator-writer Robinson with plot and script ideas and gained co-writer credits on the first episode of series 4, "Tunnel Vision".

Learning the unpleasant differences between crime fact and crime fiction...". Article by Billingham for The Sunday Times. Accessed 10 February 2008. Billingham lives in North London with his wife Claire and their two children. He supports Wolverhampton Wanderers, although his protagonist Thorne supports Tottenham Hotspur. [22] Bibliography [ edit ] Thorne must find a man whose agenda is terrifyingly unique, and Alison, the one person who holds the key to the killer’s identity, is unable to tell anybody. . .

In Maid Marian and her Merry Men, Billingham played Gary, a dim-but-lovable guard in the employ of the Sheriff of Nottingham ( Tony Robinson), as part of a double-act with Graeme ( David Lloyd).Mark Philip David Billingham (born 2 July 1961) [1] is an English novelist, actor, television screenwriter and comedian known for the "Tom Thorne" crime novel series. A compelling, brilliantly written thriller by a name to watch. It’s been a long time since London noir was this good. In September 2015 Billingham and co-host Michael Carlson released the six-part podcast The Crime Vault Live, [20] with the last episode released in January 2016.

Lazybones (Little, Brown & Company, July 2003), ISBN 0-316-72493-9; ISBN 0-316-72494-7; William Morrow US (June 2004), ISBN 0-06-056085-1 Sleepyhead is one of the finest first-novels I’ve read in a long while. Mark Billingham has brought a rare and welcome blend of humanity, dimension, and excitement to the genre and earned an instant seat at the top table of crime novelists. An exceptional debut. From an early age, Billingham wrote often "funny" stories for popularity and enjoyment. As his interests moved towards crime fiction, he set an early novel (the unpublished The Mechanic) in his native Birmingham. Inspired by the comic-crime work of Carl Hiaasen and other authors, he attempted to use his experience as a stand-up comedian and crime fan to write a similarly comic novel. [2] Ultimately he abandoned the unfinished novel and the comic-crime genre to focus on another book that would become Sleepyhead.Billingham became the first crime writer to win the Theakston's Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year Award twice when his novel Death Message won in 2009, [10] against Reginald Hill, Val McDermid, Ian Rankin and Lee Child.

Billingham's novel Lazybones won the Theakston's Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year Award 2004 and he won the same award in 2009 for his novel Death Message. [10] In The Dark was nominated for the Crime Writers Association Gold Dagger at the 2009 Crime Thriller Awards. [18] In 2011, Billingham was inducted into the ITV3 Crime Thriller Awards Hall of Fame. Other contributors include: Laura Lippman • Lee Child • John Connolly • Lynda La Plante • John Harvey • Peter Robinson • Fidelis Morgan • Val McDermid • Karin Slaughter• Emma Donoghue• Denise Mina • Kelley Armstrong • Jane Haddam You] worry that you will be entering that world of the strange cliche-ed cop, but you soon realise that you have to get comfortable in that world. You think "Hang on, some of the clichés are part of that territory". It would like writing a Western and going "Oh no I've given him a horse! What a terrible cliché!" It's not a cliché – It's part and parcel of the genre – cowboys have six-guns, horses and stetsons and detectives have [a] past... problems [and] flaws, because if they don't, then there is nothing to read about. [3]The general theme of Scaredy Cat is really the power of fear, and that fear is a very powerful weapon, and if you are prepared to instil it, you have a very powerful weapon that is every bit as dangerous as a gun or a knife. Also what happened to me in that hotel room fed directly into a sub-plot in Scaredy Cat with some very nasty crimes carried out in hotel rooms. [3] Television adaptations [ edit ] Who would have thought a stand-up comedian could write a British police procedural as good as those produced by crime queens Elizabeth George and Ruth Rendell? In 2002, he was "in the middle of writing a screenplay for an Andrew Lloyd Webber musical and about to write a screenplay for a cult children's show," a sci-fi drama for the BBC, but turned to writing novels. [3] [9] Novels [ edit ]