Mark Billingham
Mark Billingham
Mark Philip David Billingham is an English novelist whose series of "Tom Thorne" crime novels are best-sellers in that particular genre. He is also a television screenwriter and has become a familiar face as an actor and comic...
NationalityEnglish
ProfessionNovelist
Date of Birth2 July 1961
began came drive early hours lights morning obsessive sure traffic trivial turn
I used to be something of an obsessive when it came to research. When I first began writing the Thorne novels, I would drive to a set of traffic lights in the early hours of the morning to make sure you could turn left. I thought it was important to get even the most trivial details right.
time
I've never read an ebook. Print every time.
bit change created determined grow knows reader
I've often said the reader knows every bit as much about Thorne as I do. When I created him for 'Sleepyhead,' I was determined he should be a character who would develop, book by book, change and grow as we all do, and who - crucially - would be unpredictable.
I started performing as a stand-up comedian on my own in the mid-1990s.
genre hugely
Crime is the biggest genre in libraries and in bookshops, and it is hugely varied.
naturally sat
Crime fiction has always been what I wanted to read, so when I sat down to write my first book, it was naturally the way that I was going to go.
cooler dash name pipe preferred rather shortened slightly smoke spade
I've always slightly preferred Spade to Marlowe, probably just because I thought Hammett was cooler than Chandler. He was leftwing, his name shortened to Dash rather than Ray, and he didn't smoke a pipe or like cats.
I was never a fan of cozy mysteries of anything set in the countryside, you know.
far graphic images
I think readers' imaginations are far more powerful than anything you can put on a page and, therefore, can conjure up graphic images for themselves, which I think you just have to nudge them towards.
audience basement club favourite good grabbed latest money novel shades stage volume whether
Whether your audience is in a sweaty basement club or nestled in a favourite armchair, good money has been paid, and attention has got to be grabbed if you are not to be heckled off the stage or find your novel discarded in favour of the latest volume of 'Fifty Shades of Whatever.'
mouth readers tend writer
The problem with being a writer is that some readers tend to think that anything that comes out of a character's mouth is you talking.
both delivery involve worked
Having worked as both comedian and crime writer, the one thing I know is that both involve the delivery of a performance.
believe birthday both care country detective london love music north readers root screws shares writers
I believe that if writers want their readers to care about a character, they have to care themselves. I have to root for a detective who screws up as much as Thorne does, who shares my birthday, my North London stomping ground, and my love of country music, both alt and cheesy.
bit bought business covering forward good insurance kids pay policy sure tax
I bought an insurance policy covering the inheritance tax my kids will have to pay when we die, which I thought was a good bit of forward thinking. And I always know I'm going to have enough for tax because I make sure I keep it back in my business account.