The Last Dance

Detective Miller, Book 1

By: Mark Billingham

Narrated by: David Threlfall

The first new series from #1 bestseller Mark Billingham in 20 years.

Meet Detective Miller: unique, unconventional, and criminally underestimated...

He's a detective, a dancer, he has no respect whatsoever for authority ­- and he's the best hope Blackpool has for keeping criminals off the streets. Meet Detective Declan Miller.

A double murder in a seaside hotel sees grieving Miller return to work to solve what appears to be a case of mistaken identity. Just why were two completely unconnected men taken out?

With a distinctly loose relationship with reality and a new partner to deal with, can eccentric, offbeat Miller find answers where more traditional police have found only an impossible puzzle?

2024, Crimefest Last Laugh Award, Short-listed

©2023 Mark Billingham Ltd (P)2023 Hachette Audio UK

Grew on me!

I was admittedly a bit worried by this new direction and to start with, not sure I was going to stay the course, but I’d reckoned without Billingham’s deft wit and ability to create not just a storyline, but also a character a reader or listener could truly invest in. Before very long Miller, along with all his little eccentricities, and his new working partner “Posh” had grown on me.

The narration was excellent and I’m already eagerly looking forward to spending time with Miller and crew in book 2. Which I very much hope is already in the works.

Performance loses the humour

I love Bellingham's work, but this performance seriously diminishes the humour. i laughed out loud reading this one on the page, and not at all when listening. I am not a voice actor, so can't tell you precisely what has gone wrong, but I can point to narrators who get it right in similar circumstances--Morgan C. Jones for Caimh MacDonnell's work, or Frank Muller for Elmore Leonard's books, for example--who somehow make room for the dark humour without overdoing it. it's a delicate art, but that is what we are paying y'all for.