Mark Billingham

Mark Billingham is an English crime novelist, born in 1961 and raised in the West Midlands, who worked as an actor, stand-up comedian and television writer before turning to fiction. His first novel, Sleepyhead (2001), introduced Detective Inspector Tom Thorne, the hero of a long-running series that includes Scaredy Cat, Lazybones, Death Message and The Murder Book.

He has also written the standalones In the Dark, Rush of Blood, Die of Shame and Rabbit Hole, and the Declan Miller novels beginning with The Last Dance. Lazybones and Death Message each won the Theakston's Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year, making him the first writer to win it twice.

His books have been translated into about 25 languages, and the Thorne novels were adapted for Sky television. He lives in London.