Scaredy Cat (Tom Thorne Novels)

Product Information

In talking about the creation and development of Thorne, Billingham details his difficulty in trying to create a character different from those in other, popular works:

Scaredy Cat - Mark Billingham

Billingham has received nominations and awards related to all aspects of his various careers. What's That Noise (which he wrote and presented) won the 1995 Royal Television Society award for "Best Entertainment Programme", [9] while Knight School was nominated for the RTS's "Best Children's Drama" award two years running. Around 1987 he decided to pursue a career in comedy, stating:"[The] one great advantage of stand-up comedy [is that] nobody gives a stuff about what you look like – as long as you're funny, and if you can do it, and people laugh, then you'll get bookings." [3] Billingham cites his breaking into stand-up as a simple progression from 5-minute, unpaid "try-out" spots to 10-, 20- and 30-minute paid slots. [3] Billingham has headlined at the Comedy Store, where he also appears regularly as a Master of Ceremonies. [3]Mark Billingham turned his hand into writing comedy scripts for TV, as well as continued to act and appear in front of the camera in various occasions. Generally, he is a self confessed fan of crime fiction and a very serious collector. With last year’s auspicious thriller debut (Sleepyhead), Billingham has given himself a tough act to follow. But the return of London detective Tom Thorne is most welcome, and this novel is every bit as intense and creepy as the first. Billingham's novel Lazybones won the Theakston's Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year Award 2004 and he won the same award in 2009 for his novel Death Message. [10] In The Dark was nominated for the Crime Writers Association Gold Dagger at the 2009 Crime Thriller Awards. [18] In 2011, Billingham was inducted into the ITV3 Crime Thriller Awards Hall of Fame. Sleepyhead ( Little, Brown & Company, August 2001), ISBN 0-316-85697-5; William Morrow US, July 2002, ISBN 0-06-621299-5

Tom Thorne Series by Mark Billingham - Goodreads

Thorne is a British crime drama television series, based on the novels of author Mark Billingham, that was first broadcast on Sky One on 10 October 2010. [1] A single six-episode series, starring David Morrissey in the title role of Detective Inspector Tom Thorne, was broadcast at 21:00 on Sundays until 14 November. [1] As well as Morrissey, the series also stars Aidan Gillen, Eddie Marsan, O-T Fagbenle and Lorraine Ashbourne in supporting roles. [1] The series comprises two three-part dramatisations of the first two Thorne novels, Sleepyhead and Scaredycat. Sleepyhead, directed by Stephen Hopkins, previewed in full at the BFI Southbank in London on 4 October 2010, followed by a Q&A session featuring writer Mark Billingham and actors David Morrissey and Eddie Marsan. [2] Learning the unpleasant differences between crime fact and crime fiction...". Article by Billingham for The Sunday Times. Accessed 10 February 2008. In September 2015 Billingham and co-host Michael Carlson released the six-part podcast The Crime Vault Live, [20] with the last episode released in January 2016. An acclaimed television series based on the Thorne novels was screened on Sky One in Autumn 2010, starring David Morrissey as Tom Thorne. A series based on the novels In The Dark and Time Of Death was screened on BBC1 in 2017.Billingham currently hosts UKTV's crime podcast A Stab in the Dark. [21] Each episode includes a discussion on a particular theme from crime fiction and crime drama, and has featured guests including David Morrissey, Val McDermid, Michael Connelly and Ann Cleeves. You] worry that you will be entering that world of the strange cliche-ed cop, but you soon realise that you have to get comfortable in that world. You think "Hang on, some of the clichés are part of that territory". It would like writing a Western and going "Oh no I've given him a horse! What a terrible cliché!" It's not a cliché – It's part and parcel of the genre – cowboys have six-guns, horses and stetsons and detectives have [a] past... problems [and] flaws, because if they don't, then there is nothing to read about. [3] Heady psychological suspense runs through the hip, flawlessly plotted Scaredy Cat. Mark Billingham again creates a contemporary twilight zone that feels all too real.

Mark Billingham - Book Series In Order Mark Billingham - Book Series In Order

The general theme of Scaredy Cat is really the power of fear, and that fear is a very powerful weapon, and if you are prepared to instil it, you have a very powerful weapon that is every bit as dangerous as a gun or a knife. Also what happened to me in that hotel room fed directly into a sub-plot in Scaredy Cat with some very nasty crimes carried out in hotel rooms. [3] Television adaptations [ edit ] Readers who like a powerful police procedural with strong characters, will want to read this superb tale. This is a winner.

Sleepyhead

Lazybones (Little, Brown & Company, July 2003), ISBN 0-316-72493-9; ISBN 0-316-72494-7; William Morrow US (June 2004), ISBN 0-06-056085-1 Sweeting, Adam (11 October 2010). "Single Father, BBC One / Thorne: Sleepyhead, Sky1". The Arts Desk . Retrieved 14 February 2017. After graduating with a degree in drama from the Department of Drama and Theatre Arts, he helped form a socialist theatre company, Bread & Circuses, in Birmingham. Bread & Circuses toured with shows in schools, colleges, arts centres and the street. [3] In the mid-1980s he moved to London as a "jobbing actor", taking minor roles in episodes of TV shows Dempsey and Makepeace, Juliet Bravo, Boon, and The Bill. [2] [4] After playing a variety of "bad guy roles such as a soccer hooligan, drug addict, a nasty copper, a racist copper or a bent copper", he claimed that he had become disenchanted with acting and that the emphasis was not on talent, but on looks. [3]

Mark Billingham About - Mark Billingham

Billingham has a chilling talent.Right up there with this country’s dark masters such as Ian Rankin and Val McDermid.Dancing Towards The Blade" in Men From Boys by John Harvey (ed.) ( Arrow Books, September 2004), ISBN 0-09-946152-8 Lifeless (Little, Brown & Company, May 2005), ISBN 0-316-72752-0; Scorpion Press, June 2005, ISBN 1-873567-70-7; William Morrow US, September 2006, ISBN 0-06-084166-4 The series of crime novels featuring London-based detective Tom Thorne continued with Scaredy Cat and was followed by Lazybones, The Burning Girl, Lifeless, Buried, Death Message, Bloodline, From The Dead, Good As Dead, The Dying Hours, The Bones Beneath, Time Of Death, Love Like Blood, The Killing Habit, Their Little Secret, Cry Baby and the most recent The Murder Book. Mark is also the author of the standalone novels In The Dark, Rush Of Blood, Die Of Shame and his latest, Rabbit Hole.