October 2011 Issue - Costa Calida Chronicle

In association with Costa Cálida International Radio and www.angloINFO.com
Mark Billingham
was
born and
brought up
in Birmingham.
He
worked for
some years
as an actor,
TV writer
and standupcomedian,
and his
fi rst crime
novel was
published
in 2001.
Sleepyhead was an instant bestseller in
the UK and has been sold widely throughout
the world and was published in the USA
in the summer of 2002. Mark then began
to write a series of crime novels featuring
London-based detective Tom Thorne.
He has also written a series of children’s
thrillers –Triskellion – written under the
pseudonym Will Peterson. Mark lives in
London with his wife and two children.
Scaredy Cat (2002)
This is the second book by Mark Billingham
which features DI Tom Thorne. There
are two killers acting in unison, but separately.
It takes Thorne a little bit to fi gure
Page 24
it out, but the tricky part comes when he
actually has to catch these deranged killers
and stop them. The clues aren’t exactly
pouring in and we are given a secondary
back story to follow, along the lines of
Sleepyhead, only this time it’s not the
victim’s thoughts we are seeing, but the
beginnings of a pair of killers.
The Burning
Girl
(2004)
North London
is shaken
by the
brutality of
the opening
assault
by the Turkish
Zarif
family, who
employs a
vicious hit
man, leaving
an X carved
on the
back of victims.
Two decades ago, someone torched
schoolgirl Jessica Clarke, believing she was
gang boss Kevin Kelly’s daughter Alison. As
Gordon Rooker, who confessed to the fi -
ery murder, is up for release, someone has
called claiming to have burned her. Reluc-
tantly Tom Thorne agrees to look into the
1984 horror and the present phone calls,
not realizing this all ties together with the
X marks. Tom Thorne is at his best as he
crosses the legal line to ensure justice for
a little girl is served. Carol is an intriguing
secondary character who, with her over
the hill cold case squad retirees, seems
perfect for her own tales.
In The Dark (2008)
DI Thorne is given a well-deserved rest
(although he does make a brief cameo appearance)
in In The Dark. A woman is
driving home late at night in Hackney and
sees a car with its lights turned off. She
fl ashes her own lights to warn the driver,
but after being shot at, she loses control
the car and ends up killing an off-duty policeman.
As the Division Chief on a Child
Protection Unit, the very pregnant Helen
Weeks never expected to fi nd herself on
the other side of the police desk. Witnesses
reported hearing gunshots from a second
passing vehicle and local police suspect
that this might be the work of a neighborhood
gang. Helen is determined to accept
her fi ancés death, but clues eventually
lead her to a series of startling discoveries.
Firstly, Paul was doing more than just routine
intelligence work for the police force
and secondly, Paul’s death wasn’t just an
accident.
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