Tom is a DI(detective inspector) who has his own regrets and has skeletons in the cupboard. He's failed in the past to act swiftly on a case and prevent a murder that haunted him for years that followed it. He has been divorced now five years and finds new love in this story. As he is one the chase of a murderer who's tends to want to inject his victims and drug them his life becomes more complicated and things get personal on this case. So far he is a clean DI no drugs, or excesses in alcohol or bribes. It's refreshing to read about my own turf roads and points of interest I know well compared to reading about the states from their writers which I have yet to visit. Just realized that a British TV drama was made of Sleepyhead i am looking forward to seeing it. This is the first book featuring D I Tom Thorne. When Alison Willetts is found in a deliberately induced coma, it seems that her survival is not the mistake. The mistake was the three young women previously found dead and Alison's case the first the killer got right. Thorne must investigate and soon finds himself involved with Alison's doctor, Anne Coburn, despite the fact that one of her closest and oldest friends is his prime suspct. On the other hand the 'why' and 'who' of the killer were a bit of a downer: I almost never can guess who the culprit is in murder mysteries, but in this case I did with no particular problems and quite early on. I am not saying it's a major disadvantage, as you never really know till the end and there was still some excitement in finding out, but readers who prefer their crime mysteries to stay mysterious till the final unravelling might find it a problem.

There are moments of genuine poignancy. I think in particular of some of the dialogue between Thorne and his junior, Holland or again the encounter between Holland,( incidentally a character I felt was a great creation but severely underused, maybe he comes more into his own in future books)and Maggie Byrne. This showed real sensitivity in the writing and added another strata to the novel which took it beyond mere blood and guts and began to move me to forgive Billingham for creating such a cliché ridden hero. Summary: A police procedural with some great chracters and a good killer with a very inventive modus operandi, but too easy to guess; formulaic detective but vivid description of London; the style stumbles and some parts could have been edited out. Borrow definitely, buy only if you are a comitted Billingham fan. Maid Marian and her Merry Men Series 3 (Tony Robinson, Mark Billingham and David Lloyd on 'creative writing'). David Bell. UK: Eureka. 2006 [1993]. EKA40224. {{ cite AV media notes}}: CS1 maint: others in cite AV media (notes) ( link)After graduating with a degree in drama from the Department of Drama and Theatre Arts, he helped form a socialist theatre company, Bread & Circuses, in Birmingham. Bread & Circuses toured with shows in schools, colleges, arts centres and the street. [3] In the mid-1980s he moved to London as a "jobbing actor", taking minor roles in episodes of TV shows Dempsey and Makepeace, Juliet Bravo, Boon, and The Bill. [2] [4] After playing a variety of "bad guy roles such as a soccer hooligan, drug addict, a nasty copper, a racist copper or a bent copper", he claimed that he had become disenchanted with acting and that the emphasis was not on talent, but on looks. [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 ] Sleepyhead seems to suffer from some fairly typical debut problems: the main character is definitely still finding his voice, and the novel could do with a bit of editing. As he explains, they were kept bound and engaged in their hotel room by a trio of masked men who stole credit cards and items from them. Billingham at some point recalls being terrified by the sheer audacity of the criminals who succeeded to instill a feeling of menace and fear into their victims. Billingham show a great deal of knowledge in police work and methods. Thorne is accompanied by his DC from the first book, Dave Holland and joined by a new DC, Sarah McEvoy, who brings her own problems into the fray.

The writing quality in Sleepyhead is variable: some parts, especially the internal monologues of Alison and the musings of the killer work very well. The chapters written in the free indirect style describing Thorne's view of the events are amongst the most strained and have a bit too many dead sentences for my personal liking. Some imagery seems to be purposefully designed to be dark and grotty, but instead ends up being almost funny: envy burns through his body like caustic soda dissolving fat in a drain. Chandler it ain't, really. And what is ersatz dross? 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 ]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] Around 1987 he decided to pursue a career in comedy, stating:"[The] one great advantage of stand-up comedy [is that] nobody gives a stuff about what you look like – as long as you're funny, and if you can do it, and people laugh, then you'll get bookings." [3] Billingham cites his breaking into stand-up as a simple progression from 5-minute, unpaid "try-out" spots to 10-, 20- and 30-minute paid slots. [3] Billingham has headlined at the Comedy Store, where he also appears regularly as a Master of Ceremonies. [3] 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. The modus operandi of the killer is one of the best features of the novel. I suppose this is how serial killer books differentiate: either by the way that murders are committed or the motives/personality of the killer. Sleepyhead is definitely a 'how' book and the idea of a killer for whom a killing constitutes a failure is a truly ingenious and a very entertaining one. The central character has continuously featured in the vast majority of his works except in the novels titled in The Dark and Rush of Blood. It his novel sleepyhead, Billingham writes that if the writers want their readers to care about the character, the first thing they should do is to care themselves, and as such he has imbued Thorne with a lot of his personal characteristics.

It might have been my mood, but unlike many reviewers I didn't find Sleepyhead scary. There weren't any moments when I felt viscerally moved or wanted to hide under the duvet; but then I am not particularly scared of serial killers and see them similarly to dragons and other fictional monsters. 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. . . a b "Nominations for Theakston's Crime Novel of the year Award 2009". digyorkshire.com. 2 June 2009 . Retrieved 17 June 2009. What is it about British mystery authors cranking out excellent first novels? Nicci French, Mo Hayder, and Minette Walters have all waltzed down the pike in the last decade and taken the world by storm. Now you can add Mark Billingham to the list. The story takes interesting turns--Thorne makes some mistakes and is villified, and you both agree and disagree with him.Two women have been murdered simultaneously near St Pancras station, but in quite different ways. When the connection is made with two other murders, months before but on the same day, DI Thorne realises that two serial killers are at work in a macabre partnership.

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. The level of gore is acceptable: Billingham doesn't wallow too much in the detailed anatomical descriptions of dead bodies even though they are there; there are also several rather bloody episodes including the climax. I would rate the gore factor as about 7 out of 10 as far as murder mysteries go, so not for the terribly squeamish, but not overdone either.

Award and nominations

The problems I had related mostly to a stumbling writing style, especially in the sections written from Thorne's perspective; the construction of the novel could also be improved by removal of some of the scenes. Despite its faults it was certainly a promising debut and I have to say that the next instalment of DI Thorne's story Scaredy Cat was significantly improved. These characters re-appear in the novels following this one and Sleepyhead does a good job of introducing them. Despite the fact that they are all rather 'of a type', they have enough individuality to produce a good framework for the main story. 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.