Mark Billingham Books In Order
Book links take you to Amazon. As an Amazon Associate I earn money from qualifying purchases.Publication Order of Detective Miller Books
Publication Order of Tom Thorne Books
Sleepyhead | (2001) | Hardcover Paperback Kindle |
Scaredy Cat | (2001) | Hardcover Paperback Kindle |
Lazybones | (2003) | Hardcover Paperback Kindle |
The Burning Girl | (2004) | Hardcover Paperback Kindle |
Lifeless | (2005) | Hardcover Paperback Kindle |
Buried | (2006) | Hardcover Paperback Kindle |
Death Message | (2007) | Hardcover Paperback Kindle |
Bloodline | (2009) | Hardcover Paperback Kindle |
From The Dead | (2010) | Hardcover Paperback Kindle |
Good as Dead / The Demands | (2011) | Hardcover Paperback Kindle |
The Dying Hours | (2013) | Hardcover Paperback Kindle |
Thorne at Christmas: A Short Story Collection | (2013) | Hardcover Paperback Kindle |
The Bones Beneath | (2014) | Hardcover Paperback Kindle |
Time of Death | (2015) | Hardcover Paperback Kindle |
Love Like Blood | (2017) | Hardcover Paperback Kindle |
The Killing Habit | (2018) | Hardcover Paperback Kindle |
Their Little Secret | (2019) | Hardcover Paperback Kindle |
Cry Baby | (2020) | Hardcover Paperback Kindle |
The Murder Book | (2022) | Hardcover Paperback Kindle |
Publication Order of Triskellion Books
Triskellion | (2008) | Hardcover Paperback Kindle |
The Burning | (2009) | Hardcover Paperback Kindle |
The Gathering | (2010) | Hardcover Paperback Kindle |
Publication Order of Standalone Novels
Knight School | (1998) | Hardcover Paperback Kindle |
In the Dark | (2008) | Hardcover Paperback Kindle |
Rush of Blood | (2012) | Hardcover Paperback Kindle |
Die of Shame | (2016) | Hardcover Paperback Kindle |
Cut Off | (2018) | Hardcover Paperback Kindle |
Rabbit Hole | (2021) | Hardcover Paperback Kindle |
Publication Order of Non-Fiction Books
Publication Order of Short Story Collections
Publication Order of Anthologies
Like a Charm | (2004) | Hardcover Paperback Kindle |
Criminal Tendencies | (2009) | Hardcover Paperback Kindle |
The Sounds Of Crime | (2010) | Hardcover Paperback Kindle |
The Killer Cookbook | (2012) | Hardcover Paperback Kindle |
Inherit the Dead | (2013) | Hardcover Paperback Kindle |
OxCrimes: 27 Killer Stories from the Cream of Crimewriters | (2014) | Hardcover Paperback Kindle |
Crime Writers: A Decade of Crime | (2016) | Hardcover Paperback Kindle |
Dead Simple | (2017) | Hardcover Paperback Kindle |
He was born 2nd July 1961 in Solihull, Warwickshire and grew up in Birmingham. Mark attended the King Edward VI camp Hill school which was a Boys grammar school located nearby Kings Heath. He later joined University and graduated with a degree in drama.
He stayed in Birmingham and helped form a theater company called Bread and Circuses which toured with a number of shows in schools, art centers, colleges, and streets. He later moved from Birmingham to London in the mid 1980’s where he was acting as a jobbing actor who took minor roles in episodes of TV shows.
He later decided to pursue a career in comedy in the year 1987. Within a year Mark had headlines at the comedy store on several occasions where he frequently appeared as a Master of Ceremonies. In the year 1988, mark Billingham was seen on the children’s comedy series news at twelve in which the central character broadcasts his own TV news bulletin every evening.
Award and nominations
Billingham has received quite a number of nominations and awards relating to all areas of his careers. Scaredy cat released in 2002 won the Sherlock Award for the best Detective Novel Created by a UK author and was also nominated for the crime writers Association Gold Dagger for the best crime novel of the year. Lifeless, which was released in 2005 was nominated for the BCA Crime Thriller of the year Award in the following year 2006.
Another novel tiled Lazybones won the Theakston’s Old peculiar Crime Novel of the year award in 2004, and later won the same award for his Death Message novel. A Novel, in the dark, was also nominated for the crime writers Association Gold dagger at 2009 crime Thriller Awards.
In the year 2011, Mark Billingham was inducted into the ITV3 crime thriller awards hall of fame. He also won 1995 Royal Television Society Award for the best entertainment programme. While he was at Knight School, he was nominated for the Best Children’s Drama Award for two consecutive years.
Writing
Mark Billingham turned his hand into writing comedy scripts for TV, as well as continued to act and appear in front of the camera in various occasions. Generally, he is a self confessed fan of crime fiction and a very serious collector.
He supposed that the expense of collecting books inspired him to get himself into reviewing books, and interviewing. In the year 2002, he was in the middle of writing a screenplay for an Andrew Lloyd Webber musical and was about to write a screenplay for cult children’s show, but his major consideration turned to writing novels.
He became the first crime writer to win the Theakston’s old peculiar crime novel of the year award two times when his novel Death message won in the year 2009. His first two novels include:
Sleepyhead
In the year 2001, mark Billingham first crime novel titled sleepyhead was published in United Kingdom by Little, Brown company. It was released in August 2001 and made it onto the Sunday time in the Top ten best seller categories.
It became the biggest selling first appearance novel of that summer. In the year 2009, the novel was listed as one of the 100 novels which shaped the decade and was later chosen as one of the best titles for World Book Night in 2011.
In this novel, Billingham created detective inspector Tom Thorne for his debut novel sleepyhead where a case of locked in syndrome reveals the dark dept of a twisted mind, as a dept at toying with the detective inspector as with the victims.
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.
The two basically share a birthday and have interest in music. When talking about the creation and development of his main character, the author notes the difficulty and worry which is involved in trying to create a personality different from those in other existing, popular and familiar works.
Generally, Thorne’s internal continuity is essential to his author since the events of his past affect the individuals who are in the present. However, this very aspect of his character causes Billingham great difficulty in describing him without giving away plot twists.
Scaredy cat
Billingham became a crime victim in the year 1997 where he was kidnapped together with his writing partner Peter Cocks and held hostage in Manchester hotel room. From this event, Billingham turned them into inspiration for his second Thorne novel, Scaredy cat.
In this novel, the general theme he addresses is the power of fear. According to Billingham, power is a very powerful weapon that is every bit as dangerous as a knife or a gun. Everything that happened to him in the hotel is directly sub plotted in the novel with some very nasty crimes which were carried out.
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.
This theme was later fed into his novel that if one person is able to scare someone so much, then they can make them do anything. The novel; Scaredy cat storyline therefore presents the scenario of tandem serial killers who consist of two individuals ostensibly working together creating an added air of terror and expectation whenever one of them strikes.
Book Series In Order » Authors »
He has a new series starting July 4, 2023 – first book is Last Dance. Can’t wait. Read all the Thorne series.
Mark Billingham is a seriously talented author and his books are completely addictive. I’ve loved him since Maid Marion, he’s a very funny, perceptive man and in my opinion, the best writer around for decades.
I just read “In the Dark”, it was a very suspenseful novel. I would like to see a sequel to this book. It seems unfinished. Just my opinion.
Phew, that’s a load off, Hugh. Thank God you made those corrections.