Showing results by author "Mark Billingham" in All Categories

It's 1996. Detective Sergeant Tom Thorne is a haunted man. Haunted by the moment he ignored his instinct about a suspect, by the horrific crime that followed and by the memories that come day and night, in sunshine and shadow. So when seven-year-old Kieron Coyne goes missing while playing in the woods with his best friend, Thorne vows he will not make the same mistake again. Cannot. The solitary witness. The strange neighbour. The friendly teacher. All are in Thorne's sights. This case will be the making of him...or the breaking.

Newly demoted after stepping out of line once too often, and struggling to adjust, Detective Inspector Tom Thorne becomes convinced that a spate of suicides among the elderly in London is something more sinister. His concerns are dismissed by the murder squad he was once part of and he is forced to investigate alone. Now, unable to trust anybody, Thorne risks losing those closest to him as well as endangering those being targeted by a killer unlike any he has hunted before: a man with nothing to lose and a growing list of victims.

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?

The customers in a London convenience store are taken captive. Among them is a young mother, Detective Helen Weeks. She is told her life depends on the co-operation of one of her colleagues - detective Tom Thorne. Akhtar is desperate to know what really happened to his beloved son, who died a year before in prison. He is convinced the death was not an accident and forces the one man who knows more about the case than any other, Thorne, to re-investigate.

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 25 years before. But only if Thorne agrees to escort him. Unable to refuse, Thorne gathers a team and travels to a remote Welsh island, at the mercy of the weather and cut off from the mainland. Thorne is determined to get the job done and return home before Nicklin can outwit them.

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.However, no one listens to Tom Thorne anymore. Having stepped out of line once too often, he's back in uniform and he hates it. Patronised and abused by his new colleagues, Thorne's suspicions about the suicides are dismissed by the Murder Squad he was once part of and he is forced to investigate alone.

For 15 years, Janet has been married to her devoted and boring husband, Trevor. But their marriage was not as simple as it seemed. Now Janet is on the road, hurtling towards another man, and another life. Has she found freedom, and the strength to escape Trevor’s dominating fetishes? Or is there something far more sinister waiting for her at the crematorium?

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? Tom Thorne is posted to the same streets - working undercover, disguised as a homeless man. In a harsh and harrowing underworld, Thorne discovers the horrifying link between the homeless victims and the perpetrators of a 15-year-old atrocity. Those who know are keeping quiet. But the word on these streets is that the killer is a cop....

The Hostage. Police officer Helen Weeks walks into her local newsagent's on her way to work. Little does she know that this simple daily ritual will change her life forever. It's the last place she expects to be met with violence, but as she waits innocently at the till, she comes face to face with a gunman. The Demand. The crazed hostage-taker is desperate to know what really happened to his beloved son, who died a year before in youth custody.

Tom Thorne has it all. In Nicola Tanner and Phil Hendricks, Thorne has good friends by his side. He finally has a love life worth a damn and is happy in the job to which he has devoted his life. He has everything to lose. Hunting the woman responsible for a series of grisly murders, Thorne has no way of knowing that he will be plunged into a nightmare from which he may never wake. And he'll do anything to keep it. Finally, Thorne's past has caught up with him and a ruinous secret is about to be revealed. If he wants to save himself and his friends, he must do the unthinkable.

As DI Nicola Tanner investigates what appears to be a series of organised 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 honour.

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, DI 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.

From number one best seller Mark Billingham comes a twisting, unbearably gripping DI Tom Thorne and Nicola Tanner thriller inspired by a dramatic real-life case. How do you catch a killer who is yet to kill? We all know the signs. Cruelty, lack of empathy, the killing of animals. Now, pets on suburban London streets are being stalked by a shadow, and it could just be the start. DI Tom Thorne knows the psychological profile of such offenders all too well.

Audible exclusive. Mark Billingham joins us to talk about his new book, Die of Shame. Who will die? Who will be betrayed? Who will kill? Talking about stepping out of his comfort zone to keep it fresh, the challenges of writing a series and much, much more. About Die of Shame: full of betrayal, deceit and suspense, Die of Shame is the spectacular new book from number-one best seller Mark Billingham - author of Time of Death and In the Dark, both soon to be major BBC series.

When DI Tom Thorne is called to conduct a routine assessment at the site of a suicide, he expects to be in and out in no time. But when he arrives at the metro station, where a woman named Philippa Goodwin threw herself in front of an underground train, Thorne inexplicably senses something awry and feels compelled to dig deeper. He soon discovers that she was the victim of a callous con-man who preys on vulnerable women, and whose deception plunged Philippa to her end. Thorne enlists DI Nicola Tanner to help him track down the swindler and bring him to justice.

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. And this grisly event eerily echoes the murder of two other women, stabbed to death months before on the same day. It is DI Tom Thorne who sees the link and comes to the horrifying conclusion. This is not a serial killer the police are up against. This is two of them - and two killers are way more deadly than one....

It's only 10 days since Douglas Remfry's release from prison, having served seven years for rape, and now he's dead: naked on a bare mattress in a grubby north London hotel room, his head hooded and his hands tied with a brown leather belt. Someone knew he was coming out. Someone wanted to mete out some punishment of his own. And when a second sex offender is found dead, DI Tom Thorne knows he has a vicious, calculating vigilante on his hands.

In a city where violence can be random or meticulously planned, where teenage gangs clash with career criminals, and where loyalty is paid for in blood, anything is possible. Secrets are uncovered as fast as bodies, and the story's final twist is as breathtakingly surprising as they come.

It has been a decade since Alan Langford's charred remains were discovered in his burnt-out car. His wife, Donna, was found guilty of conspiracy to murder her husband and served 10 years in prison. But just before she is released, Donna receives a nasty shock: an anonymous letter containing a photo of her husband. The man she hates with every fibre of her being - the man she paid to have murdered - seems very much alive and well. How is it possible that her husband is still alive?

When a dead body is found in a North London flat, 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. DI Thorne discovers that the victim's mother had herself been murdered 15 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.