


Books in series

#1
Sleepyhead
2001
Detective Inspector Tom Thorne now knows that three murdered young women were a killer's mistakes—and that Alison was his triumph. And unless Thorne can enter the mind of a brilliant madman—a frighteningly elusive fiend who enjoys toying with the police as much as he savors his sick obsession—Alison Willetts will not be the last victim consigned forever to a hideous waking hell.
Already an international bestseller, Mark Billingham's "Sleepyhead" is a chilling masterwork of crime fiction—a boldly original experiment in terror that will beget dark dreams and sleepless nights.

#2
Scaredy Cat
2001
SCARE SOMEONE ENOUGH, THEY'LL DO ANYTHING...
It was a vicious, calculated murder. The killer selected his victim at Euston station, followed her home on the tube and 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. It is a grisly coincidence that 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. Finding the body used to be the worst part of the job. Not any more. Now each time a body is found, Thorne must live with the knowledge that somewhere out there is a second victim, waiting to be discovered...

#3
Lazybones
2003
A MONSTER MURDERED
It's only ten 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.
A DEADLY JUSTICE
Someone knew he was coming out. Someone wanted to mete out some punishment of his own.
A CASE NO ONE WANTS SOLVED
And when a second sex offender is found dead, DI Tom Thorne knows he has a vicious, calculating viliglante on his hands...

#4
The Burning Girl
2004
Jessica Clarke had been set alight twenty years ago. Her attacker, quickly tracked down and eager to confess, was still in jail, his career as a hitman for North London gangs now well behind him. So who is harassing Carol Chamberlain, the arresting officer in that case, and claiming that he is the one who burned the girl? Now retired, Carol turns to DI Tom Thorne for help. He's up to his neck in an investigation into a series of killings, which appears to be the result of a turf war between rival gangs, and he's fed up to the gills with reporting to DCI Tughan, so helping Carol out looks like a good deed in a naughty world. Only the world is about to turn much nastier, so nasty in fact that he finds himself longing for a straightforward psycopath to hunt down. In Mark Billingham's fourth novel, he explores the effects of violence and greed on the lives of those who exploit their fellow beings in a novel of exceptional power.

#5
Lifeless
2005
It appears that someone is targeting London's homeless community so DI Tom Thorne goes undercover amongst them. The information he gleans is that this is no random killer, it is someone with a specific list of victims.

#6
Buried
2006
A MISSING BOY
Teenager Luke Mullen was last seen getting into a car with an older woman. No one can understand why he has disappeared. His father - a former police officer - knows all too well that the longer he is missing, the more likely he is to turn up dead.
A TERRIFYING VIDEO
Then Luke's parents receive an anonymous video. It shows their son, eyes wide with terror, as a man advances towards him holding a syringe.
A RACE AGAINST TIME
DI Tom Thorne recognises a psychopath when he sees one. And the scene on the tape chills him to the bone - he knows that a child's life hangs in the balance, and that every minute counts...

#7
Death Message
2007
Book by MARK BILLINGHAM

#8
Bloodline
2009
DI Tom Thorne is back...
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.
Thorne discovers that the victim's mother had herself been murdered fifteen 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.
When more bodies and more fragments of X-ray are discovered, Thorne has a macabre jigsaw to piece together until the horrifying picture finally emerges. A killer is targeting the children of Raymond Garvey's victims.
Thorne must move quickly to protect those still on the murderer's list, but nothing and nobody are what they seem. Not when Thorne is dealing with one of the most twisted killers he has ever hunted...
A chilling, relentlessly paced thriller, Bloodline is the most gripping Tom Thorne novel yet.

#9
From the Dead
2010
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 ten 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? Where is he? Who sent the photo, and why?
DI Tom Thorne becomes involved in a case where nothing and no one are what they seem. It will take him much further from his London beat than he has ever been before – and closer to a killer who will do anything to protect his new life.

#10
Good As Dead
2011
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. By holding a police officer at gunpoint, he will force the one man who knows more about the case than any other to re-investigate his son's death. That man is DI Tom Thorne.
The Twist. While Helen fights to stay alive and the body-count rises,Thorne must race against time if he is to bring a killer to justice and save a young mother's life.

#10
Thorne at Christmas
2013
Available together in ebook for the first time ever, this duo of brilliant short stories featuring a guest appearance by DI Tom Thorne showcases the crime writing talent of number one Sunday Times bestseller Mark Billingham.Underneath the Mistletoe Last NightWhen young Jack finds 'Father Christmas' dead beneath the tree, DI Tom Thorne, who has volunteered to work on Christmas Day, must get to the truth with the help of his reliable team and some incriminating evidence.Stepping UpWhen a retired boxer is persuaded to join an exercise class by his daughter, he sees a woman whose face has haunted him for forty years. He used to be a minder for underworld criminals and Zoe was always in their circle. So when she gets in trouble with another class member, he's there to protect her, as he used to - whatever it takes.

#11
The Dying Hours
2013
A fantastic, never-before-published Tom Thorne novel by England's crime king. It's been twenty-five years since Tom Thorne last went to work wearing the "Queen's cloth" but now, having stepped out of line once too often, he's back in uniform. He's no longer a detective, and he hates it. Still struggling to adjust, Thorne becomes convinced that a spate of suicides among the elderly in London are 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. A man who appears to have the power to make people take their own lives.

#12
The Bones Beneath
2014
The Bones Beneath, the twelfth novel in the internationally bestselling Tom Thorne series shows Thorne facing perhaps the most dangerous killer he has ever put away, Stuart Nicklin. When Nicklin announces that he wishes to reveal the whereabouts of one of his earliest victims and that he wants the cop who caught him to be there when he does it, it becomes clear that Thorne’s life is about to become seriously unpleasant. Thorne is forced to accompany Nicklin to a remote island off the Welsh coast which is cut off from the mainland in every sense. Shrouded in myth and legend, it is said to be the resting place of 20,000 saints and as Thorne and his team search for bones that are somewhat more recent, it becomes clear that Nicklin’s motives are far from altruistic.
The twisted scheme of a dangerous and manipulative psychopath will result in many more victims and will leave Tom Thorne with the most terrible choice he has ever had to make.

#13
Time of Death
2015
Time Of Death…
The Missing
Two schoolgirls are abducted in the small, dying Warwickshire town of Polesford, driving a knife into the heart of the community where police officer Helen Weeks grew up and from which she long ago escaped. But this is a place full of secrets, where dangerous truths lie buried.
The Accused
When it's splashed all over the press that family man Stephen Bates has been arrested, Helen and her partner Tom Thorne head to the flooded town to support Bates' wife an old school friend of Helen¹s living under siege with two teenage children and convinced of her husband's innocence.
The Dead
As residents and media bay for Bates' blood, a decomposing body is found. The police believe they have their murderer in custody, but one man believes otherwise. With a girl still missing, Thorne sets himself on a collision course with local police, townsfolk and a merciless killer.

#14
Love Like Blood
2017
This riveting novel marks the return of series character Tom Thorne as he pairs up with the perfectionist Detective Inspector Nicola Tanner on an investigation that ventures into politically sensitive territory. Tanner needs help. Her partner Susan has been brutally murdered, and Tanner is convinced that it was a case of mistaken identity and that she was the real target. The murderer's motive might have something to do with her recent work on a string of cold-case honour killings she believes to be related. She is now on compassionate leave but insists on pursuing the case off the books, and knows Thorne is just the man to jump into the fire with her. He agrees but quickly finds that working in such controversial territory is dangerous in more ways than one. When a teenage couple disappear off the subway, Thorne and Tanner have a chance to investigate a case that is anything but cold. As ever Billingham blends humanity, dimension and excitement in his crime fiction.

#15
The Killing Habit
2018
From “one of the most consistently entertaining, insightful crime writers working today” (Gillian Flynn), The Killing Habit again brings together favorite wild-card detective Tom Thorne and straight-laced DI Nicola Tanner on a pair of lethally high-stakes cases.
While DI Nicola Tanner investigates the deadly spread of a dangerous new drug, Tom Thorne is handed a case that he doesn’t take too seriously, until a spate of animal killings points to the work of a serial killer. When the two cases come together in a way that neither could have foreseen, both Thorne and Tanner must risk everything to catch two very different killers.

#16
Their Little Secret
2019
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. But the detective duo gets more than they bargained for when a young man’s bludgeoned body turns up on the shore of a nearby seaside town. The two cases come together in a way that neither of the detectives could have foreseen. Brilliantly plotted with a shocking psychological bent, Their Little Secret is another masterful thriller from one of Britain’s most beloved crime writers. With twists and turns that will keep readers guessing until the final page, this is Mark Billingham’s most chilling novel yet.

#17
Cry Baby
2020
In the summer of 1996, two boys run from a playground into the adjoining woods, but only one comes out. DS Tom Thorne takes on a case that quickly spirals out of control when two people connected with the missing boy are murdered. As London prepares to host the European Soccer Championships, Thorne fights to keep on top of a baffling investigation while also dealing with the ugly fallout of his broken marriage. A prequel to Billingham's acclaimed debut Sleepyhead—which the Times voted "one of the 100 books that had shaped the decade"—this compelling novel highlights the case that shaped the career of one of British crime fiction's most iconic characters.

#18
The Murder Book
2022
TOM THORNE IS BACK . . . AND SO IS HIS WORST NIGHTMARE
A gripping, grisly read. Mark Billingham is a terrific crime writer' ——- ANTHONY HOROWITZ
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.
PRAISE FOR MARK BILLINGHAM
'Mark Billingham is a master of psychology'
Ian Rankin
'Fast-paced and twisting'
Paula Hawkins
' At the very least it should reach the shortlist of this year's Booker prize'
The Times

#19
What the Night Brings
2025
What the Night Brings by Mark Billingham is the latest mystery in the bestselling Tom Thorne series, and this time, a killer is targeting the police. Is it payback? And is it justified?
“Three dead coppers, Tom, maybe four by lunchtime . . .”
The targeted murder of four officers is only the first in a series of attacks that leaves police scared, angry and, most disturbingly of all, vengeful.
As Tom Thorne and Nicola Tanner dig into the reasons for the violence, a deeper darkness begins to emerge: the possibility that these murders are payback. The price paid for an unspeakable betrayal.
To uncover the truth, Thorne will be forced to question everything he stands for. He can trust nobody, and the shocking secrets revealed by one terrible night will fracture his entire world.
Author

Mark Billingham
Author · 30 books
Also writes as Will Peterson with Peter Cocks. Mark Billingham was born and brought up in Birmingham. Having worked for some years as an actor and more recently as a TV writer and stand-up comedian his first crime novel was published in 2001. Mark lives in North London with his wife and two children.