The Shadow Step

The remarkable Detective Miller is back with a riveting new mystery

By: Mark Billingham

Narrated by: David Threlfall

The new Detective Miller thriller from bestselling author Mark Billingham, full of tension, wit and incredible twists.

'I'm excited to have found a new favourite detective' CLAIRE DOUGLAS

'Edge-of-your-seat tension, wit and heart - fantastic!' LISA JEWELL

'Funny, moving, and full of surprises. An absolute treat' MICK HERRON

'Billingham at his best' The Times

★ 'Combining humor, pathos, and genuine surprise, it's another home run from Billingham.' PUBLISHERS WEEKLY, STARRED REVIEW

'The Shadow Step is another Billingham corker' Express

It's Detective Miller's deadliest dance...

The Shadow Step: One taken simultaneously by a pair of dancers facing the same direction, one of them behind and slightly shifted leftwards ('in the shadow')

Typically, such a step perfectly demonstrates synchronized elegance. It showcases a couple in near telepathic harmony with one another. It does not normally end with someone stone-dead in a lake.

DS Declan Miller is a magnet for strange cases, but how can he catch a killer when the man confessing to the crime is clearly innocent? Things rapidly escalate when the murder that isn't really a murder at all attracts the unwanted attention of a drugs Queenpin, a deranged ex-squaddie and a lovesick gangland enforcer. Then a student is kidnapped...

Throw in a wobbly dog, a pair of ceramic leopards and the distracting smell from a local biscuit factory, and - if he wants to save a young man's life - Miller has little choice but to waltz all the way into the shadows.©2026 Mark Billingham Ltd (P)2026 Little, Brown Book Group Limited

Critic reviews

★ Combining humor, pathos, and genuine surprise, it's another home run from Billingham.

Billingham at his best (Mark Sanderson)

Miller is a brilliant creation and The Shadow Step is another Billingham corker (Matt Nixson)

Love the characters

I look forward to every new Mark Billingham book release and had pre-ordered this one. Declan Miller is the sort of character who, in a less skilled writer’s hand I might have found annoying, but Mr Billingham has managed to create a character who is both genuinely funny and also empathetic. I laughed out loud several times but also found myself close to tears on a few occasions too.

The story itself was interesting enough and not overly complicated but if I’m honest it’s the cast of characters that are the strength of this book for me and the story is just the vehicle by which we get to spend time with them.

The narration too is top notch. I hope there will be more of this series to come.