King Edward VI Camp Hill School for Boys where Mark Billingham studied.
Mark Billingham with Jools Holland.
Mark Billingham with Nicholas Parsons.
Mark Billingham with Val McDermid.
Royal Television Society award which Mark Billingham received in 1995.
King Edward VI Camp Hill School for Boys where Mark Billingham studied.
Royal Television Society award which Mark Billingham received in 1995.
Mark Billingham with Jools Holland.
Mark Billingham with Nicholas Parsons.
Mark Billingham with Val McDermid.
The band Fun Lovin' Crime Writers. Stuart Neville, Luca Veste, Val McDermid, Mark Billingham, Doug Johnstone, and Chris Brookmyre.
The band Fun Lovin' Crime Writers on repetition.
(Taken from the "Knight School" TV drama. Set in St Cuthbe...)
Taken from the "Knight School" TV drama. Set in St Cuthbert's Academy of Knightly Persuance, the main characters are Wally Scrope, a scholarship boy, and Sir Roger de Courcey, head boy and bully. There is much rivalry between them, especially if pupils from the girls' school are involved.
https://www.amazon.com/Knight-School-Mark-Billingham/dp/0340743387
1998
(It's rare for a young woman to die from a stroke and when...)
It's rare for a young woman to die from a stroke and when three such deaths occur in short order it starts to look like an epidemic. Then a sharp pathologist notices traces of benzodiazepine in one of the victim's blood samples and just traceable damage to the ligaments in her neck, and their cause of death is changed from 'natural' to murder. The police aren't making much progress in their hunt for the killer until he appears to make a mistake.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Sleepyhead-Tom-Thorne-Novels-Book-ebook/dp/B002TXZRO0
2001
(Two women dead. It was a vicious, calculated murder. The ...)
Two women dead. It was a vicious, calculated murder. The killer selected his victim at Euston station, followed her home on the tube, strangled her to death in front of her child. At the same time, killed in the same way, a second body is discovered at the back of King's Cross station.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B002TZ3ENE/?tag=prabook0b-20
2002
(Someone - a woman or somebody pretending to be a woman, i...)
Someone - a woman or somebody pretending to be a woman, is writing to convicted rapists in prison, befriending them and then brutally killing them when they are released. Tom Thorne must discover the link between these killings and a murder/suicide that took place twenty-five years before.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B002TXZRNG/?tag=prabook0b-20
2003
(X marks the spot - and when that spot is a corpse's naked...)
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.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B002TXZRCM/?tag=prabook0b-20
2004
(Available together in ebook for the first time ever, this...)
Available together in ebook for the first time ever, this trio of brilliant short stories showcases the writing talent of number one Sunday Times bestseller Mark Billingham - Dancing Towards the Blade, A Stroke of Luck and The Walls.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Dancing-Towards-Blade-Other-Stories-ebook/dp/B00CTMA4EY/?tag=prabook0b-20
2004
(Three men, sleeping rough on London's mean streets, have ...)
Three men, sleeping rough on London's mean streets, have been found brutally murdered - each victim kicked to death and found with a £20 note pinned to his chest. But were they killed at random, or were they targeted for a reason?
https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B002TZ3DB2/?tag=prabook0b-20
2005
(Teenager Luke Mullen was last seen getting into a car wit...)
Teenager Luke Mullen was last seen getting into a car with an older woman. No one can understand why he has disappeared. His father - a former police officer - knows all too well that the longer he is missing, the more likely he is to turn up dead.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B002TXZRQS/?tag=prabook0b-20
2006
(Tom Thorne has seen plenty of dead bodies in his time. Bu...)
Tom Thorne has seen plenty of dead bodies in his time. But when he starts receiving sick photos of murder victims on his mobile phone, he soon realizes that the next body could be his.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B002TXZTIY/?tag=prabook0b-20
2007
(It seems like a straightforward domestic murder until a b...)
It seems like a straightforward domestic murder until a bloodstained sliver of X-ray is found clutched in the dead woman's fist - and it quickly becomes clear that this case is anything but ordinary. Thorne discovers that the victim's mother had been murdered fifteen years before by infamous serial killer Raymond Garvey. The hunt to catch Garvey was one of the biggest in the history of the Met and ended with seven women dead.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B002TZ3D9E/?tag=prabook0b-20
2009
(When Donna Langford receives a very recent photo of her e...)
When Donna Langford receives a very recent photo of her ex-husband in the post, she gets the shock of her life. Because she's just spent ten years in prison for organizing his murder. When her daughter goes missing, Donna believes there can only be one man responsible and hires Anna Carpenter, a determined young private investigator, to find him.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B00403MB14/?tag=prabook0b-20
2010
(Police officer Helen Weeks walks into her local newsagent...)
Police officer Helen Weeks walks into her local newsagent's on her way to work. It's the last place she expects to be met with violence, but she is about to come face to face with a gunman. The hostage-taker is desperate to know what happened to his beloved son, who died a year before in youth custody.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B0057MLOVU/?tag=prabook0b-20
2011
(Three couples meet around the pool on their Florida holid...)
Three couples meet around the pool on their Florida holiday and become fast friends. But on their last night, their perfect holiday takes a tragic twist: the teenage daughter of another holidaymaker goes missing, and her body is later found floating in the mangroves.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Rush-Blood-Mark-Billingham-ebook/dp/B008FZK7EQ/?tag=prabook0b-20
2012
(A cluster of suicides among the elderly. Such things are ...)
A cluster of suicides among the elderly. Such things are not unknown to the police and the deaths are quickly dismissed by the police as routine. Only one man is convinced that something more sinister is taking place.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B00ABLJ644/?tag=prabook0b-20
2013
(The Deal Tom Thorne is back in charge - but there's a ter...)
The Deal Tom Thorne is back in charge - but there's a terrifying price to pay. Stuart Nicklin, the most dangerous psychopath he has ever put behind bars, promises to reveal the whereabouts of a body he buried twenty-five years before. But only if Thorne agrees to escort him.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B00HNBVIM8/?tag=prabook0b-20
2014
(Two schoolgirls are abducted in the small, dying Warwicks...)
Two schoolgirls are abducted in the small, dying Warwickshire town of Polesford, driving a knife into the heart of the community where police officer Helen Weeks grew up and from which she long ago escaped. But this is a place full of secrets, where dangerous truths lie buried.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B00SHL3W0Y/?tag=prabook0b-20
2015
(Every Monday evening, six people gather in a smart North ...)
Every Monday evening, six people gather in a smart North London house to talk about addiction. There they share their deepest secrets: stories of lies, regret, and above all, shame. Then one of them is killed - and it's clear one of the circle was responsible.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Die-Shame-Mark-Billingham-ebook/dp/B018EL5E9I/?tag=prabook0b-20
2016
(As DI Nicola Tanner investigates what appears to be a ser...)
As DI Nicola Tanner investigates what appears to be a series of organized killings, her partner Susan is brutally murdered, leaving the detective bereft, and vengeful. Taken off the case, Tanner enlists the help of DI Tom Thorne to pursue a pair of ruthless killers and the broker handing out the deadly contracts. As the killers target their latest victim, Thorne takes the biggest risk of his career and is drawn into a horrifying and disturbing world in which families will do anything to protect their honor.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B01MG7NQKP/?tag=prabook0b-20
2017
(We've all heard about the signs: coldness, cruelty, lack ...)
We've all heard about the signs: coldness, cruelty, lack of empathy. DI Tom Thorne knows the psychological profile of a psychopath all too well, so when pets start disappearing on suburban London streets, he sees a chance to stop a future murderer. Others are less convinced, so Thorne relies on DI Nicola Tanner to help him solve the case before the culprit starts hunting people. The journey brings them face to face with a killer who will tear their lives apart.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Killing-Habit-Tom-Thorne-15-ebook/dp/B0786M7DTW/?tag=prabook0b-20
2018
(Sarah thinks of herself as a normal single mum. It's what...)
Sarah thinks of herself as a normal single mum. It's what she wants others to think of her. But the truth is, she needs something new, something thrilling. Meanwhile, Tom Thorne is investigating a woman's suicide, convinced she was driven to do it by a man who preys on vulnerable women. A man who is about to change Sarah's life.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Their-Little-Secret-Thorne-Novels-ebook/dp/B07KW91G2B/?tag=prabook0b-20
2019
(Triskellion is a trilogy of children's fantasy novels wri...)
Triskellion is a trilogy of children's fantasy novels written by Mark Billingham and Peter Cocks, under the pseudonym Will Peterson. There are three books in the series entitled; Triskellion, Triskellion: The Burning and Triskellion: The Gathering. The first book was released in February 2008, the second in May 2009, and the third in March 2010.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0753GR4VF/?ie=UTF8&keywords=Triskellion&qid=1555048486&ref_=sr_1_4&s=digital-text&sr=1-4-catcorr
(A rainy night in London. Shots are fired into a car that ...)
A rainy night in London. Shots are fired into a car that swerves on to the pavement, ploughing into a bus stop. It seems that a chilling gang initiation has cost an innocent victim their life. But the reality is far more sinister.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Dark-Mark-Billingham-ebook/dp/B002S0KBU4/?tag=prabook0b-20
2008
Mark Billingham was born on June 2, 1961, in Solihull, West Midlands and grew up in Moseley, Birmingham, United Kingdom. He is the son of Jeff Billingham and Patricia Billingham (née Grice, now Thompson).
From an early age, Billingham was interested in writing, often funny stories for purposes of popularity and enjoyment. As he grew older his interests moved towards crime fiction.
Mark Billingham attended King Edward VI Camp Hill School for Boys. After graduating with a degree in drama, he stayed in Birmingham.
After getting a degree, Mark Billingham helped form a socialist theatre company Bread & Circuses in Birmingham. In the mid-1980s he moved from Birmingham to London as a jobbing actor, taking minor roles in episodes of TV shows Dempsey and Makepeace, Juliet Bravo, Boon, and The Bill. He was playing a variety of bad guy roles such as a soccer hooligan, drug addict, a nasty copper, a racist copper or a bent copper.
Also, Billingham has headlined at the Comedy Store on many occasions, where he also appears regularly as a Master of Ceremonies. Despite feeling rather ambivalent towards "serious" roles, Billingham still found considerable success by merging his careers as actor and comic to work in comedy shows. He appeared in Spitting Image, Tracy Brothers as well as on the radio version of The Mary Whitehouse Experience. In 1988, he was seen in the children's comedy series News at Twelve, in which the central character broadcasts his own imaginary TV news bulletin every evening.
In the TV series, Maid Marian and her Merry Men Billingham had the role of Gary, a dim-but-lovable guard in the employ of the Sheriff of Nottingham, charged with keeping the peace in the village of Worksop and hunting down Maid Marian and her band of freedom fighters. He was also the co-author of the first episode of series 4 Tunnel Vision with Tony Robinson and David Lloyd. Hereafter this team was working on a stage production of Maid Marian and her Merry Men.
Billingham wrote comedy scripts for television, as well as continuing to act and appear in front of the camera at various points. He joined with David Lloyd to write episodes and act in the children's TV series Harry's Mad and wrote and presented two series of BBC's What's That Noise?. Between 1997 and 1998, he and Peter Cocks wrote and co-starred in Granada TV's Knight School, for which the two also produced a novelization.
In 2002, he was writing a screenplay for an Andrew Lloyd Webber musical. This time, writing of novels became for him a priority. Billingham's first crime novel, Sleepyhead, was published in 2001. He also started to provide reviews and interviews for magazines, including Time Out. This book was the first of the series Tom Thorne. The idea for the second book was taken from life. In 1997, Billingham became a crime victim, as he and his writing partner Peter Cocks were kidnapped and held hostage in a Manchester hotel room. He turned this event into inspiration for Scaredy Cat. In the following years were published another fourteen books from this series.
In 2010 Billingham's novels were adapted as a TV series Thorne. His standalone novel In The Dark was adapted as a miniseries of the same name by the BBC in 2017. An adaptation of another standalone novel, Rush Of Blood, is currently being developed by the BBC.
Billingham has collaborated on a musical project called The Other Half with My Darling Clementine, reading an original story alongside a soundtrack by the Americana band as well. Billingham also hosts UKTV's crime podcast A Stab In The Dark. Each episode includes a discussion on a particular theme from crime fiction and crime drama.
One of his last books entitled Their Little Secret is included in Tom Thorne series.
Mark Billingham's Sleepyhead was included into the Sunday Times Top Ten Bestseller list, becoming the biggest selling debut novel of that Summer. In December 2009 it was listed as one of the 100 novels that shaped the decade and was chosen as one of the titles for World Book Night in 2011.
Knight School was nominated for the RTS's "Best Children's Drama" award, for the Crime Writers Association Gold Dagger for "Best Crime Novel of the Year". His book Lifeless was nominated for the BCA "Crime Thriller of the Year" Award in 2006. In The Dark was nominated for the Crime Writers Association Gold Dagger at the 2009 Crime Thriller Awards. In 2011, Billingham was inducted into the ITV3 Crime Thriller Awards Hall Of Fame.
(Available together in ebook for the first time ever, this...)
2004(Two schoolgirls are abducted in the small, dying Warwicks...)
2015(X marks the spot - and when that spot is a corpse's naked...)
2004(It seems like a straightforward domestic murder until a b...)
2009(Someone - a woman or somebody pretending to be a woman, i...)
2003(As DI Nicola Tanner investigates what appears to be a ser...)
2017(Three men, sleeping rough on London's mean streets, have ...)
2005(It's rare for a young woman to die from a stroke and when...)
2001(When Donna Langford receives a very recent photo of her e...)
2010(Every Monday evening, six people gather in a smart North ...)
2016(Three couples meet around the pool on their Florida holid...)
2012(Police officer Helen Weeks walks into her local newsagent...)
2011(The Deal Tom Thorne is back in charge - but there's a ter...)
2014(Teenager Luke Mullen was last seen getting into a car wit...)
2006(We've all heard about the signs: coldness, cruelty, lack ...)
2018(Tom Thorne has seen plenty of dead bodies in his time. Bu...)
2007(Sarah thinks of herself as a normal single mum. It's what...)
2019(Taken from the "Knight School" TV drama. Set in St Cuthbe...)
1998(A cluster of suicides among the elderly. Such things are ...)
2013(Two women dead. It was a vicious, calculated murder. The ...)
2002(Triskellion is a trilogy of children's fantasy novels wri...)
(A rainy night in London. Shots are fired into a car that ...)
2008
Quotations:
"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."
"The problem with being a writer is that some readers tend to think that anything that comes out of a character's mouth is you talking."
"Having worked as both comedian and crime writer, the one thing I know is that both involve the delivery of a performance."
"I am trying to give the best performance possible in 400 pages. I want readers to be scared; I want them to be moved."
"Entertainment doesn't necessarily mean something trivial, but it does mean people wanting to get to the end of a book."
"I'm a city boy. I grew up in a big city, in Birmingham, and I want to write about a city. It's much richer tapestry for me than green fields. Fields and wild life make me feel ill. I don't like - I don't want to write about that stuff."
"An actor's life is all about rejection. It's you they don't want; it's you who's too tall or too short or too fat. With stand-up, it doesn't matter what you look like."
"I think women tend to write about how violence feels, whereas men tend to write about what violence looks like."
Quotes from others about the person
Mark Billingham has brought a rare and welcome blend of humanity, dimension, and excitement to the genre.” - George Pelecanos
“Mark Billingham is one of my favorite new writers.” - Harlan Coben
“Billingham is a world-class writer and Thom Thorne is a wonderful creation.” - Karin Slaughter
“Billingham is one of the best crime novelists working today.” - Laura Lippman
“With each of his books, Mark Billingham gets better and better. These are stories and characters you don’t want to leave.” - Michael Connelly
Mark Billingham was married to Claire Winyard in 1994. They have two children.
Claire Winyard is a freelance TV Director with vast experience in mainstream Drama, live and pre-recorded music and entertainment shows. She recently directed Call The Midwife and was Lead Director on Death In Paradise.
