Books by Mark Billingham

We can all name the classic rock and pop albums of the last fifty years. But what about the great lost albums? The albums that fell behind the back of the musical sofa? The albums that, in a very real sense, have been completely made up by the authors of this book?It took a bestselling crime writer or three to hunt down these fifty lost classics, and an award-winning TV comedy scriptwriter to buy them a pint and make them write it. From the 60s to the 00s, with track listings and full histories, Great Lost Albums reveals the recordings that - just perhaps - never existed, but really should have done. Albums include: Bob Dylan's legendary collaboration with Liberace Joy Division's 'musical theatre' period Coldplay's IKEA Sessions, including 'Conscious Uncoupling (See Leaflet for Details)' and 'In my Place (There's a Lovely HEMNES Shelving System)' The Who's magisterial, abandoned rock opera 'Bingo Wizard' Kraftwerk's hastily deleted Christmas album, featuring the melancholic classic 'I Wish to Return this Item'...and many, many more.

In this 'chilling story that keeps you guessing to the last page', three couples who befriend each other on holiday may be hiding sinister secrets from each other (Daily Express)Three couples meet around the pool on their Florida holiday and become fast friends. But on their last night, their perfect holiday takes a tragic twist: the teenage daughter of another holidaymaker goes missing, and her body is later found floating in the mangroves.When the shocked couples return home, they remain in contact, and over the course of three increasingly fraught dinner parties they come to know one another better. But they don't always like what they find: buried beneath these apparently normal exteriors are some dark secrets, hidden kinks, ugly vices...Then, a second girl goes missing.Could it be that one of these six has a secret far darker than anybody can imagine?A brilliantly plotted, utterly gripping thriller about the danger of making friends on holiday, Rush of Blood is Mark Billingham's most ambitious and accomplished work to date.

'Billingham's most desperately gripping read yet' Daily MirrorPolice officer Helen Weeks walks into her local newsagents on her way to work. It's the last place she expects to be met with violence, but she is about to come face to face with a gunman.The hostage-taker is desperate to know what happened to his beloved son, who died a year before in youth custody. By holding Helen at gunpoint, he will force a re-investigation into his son's death. And one man knows the case better than any other - DI Tom Thorne.As the body count rises, Thorne must race against time to bring a killer to justice and save a young mother's life.Taking place over three action-packed days, this is the fastest and most surprising Thorne thriller yet from Sunday Times bestseller Mark Billingham.'One of the great series of British crime fiction' The Times'A new Mark Billingham is always a treat' Susie Steiner________________The outstanding new Tom Thorne thriller, THEIR LITTLE SECRET, is available to pre-order now

A SERIES OF KILLINGSThree 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?A DEADLY MISSIONTom 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 fifteen-year-old atrocity. A RUTHLESS ENEMYThose who know are keeping quiet. But the word on these streets is that the killer is a cop...

A MAN WHO KILLS FOR MONEYX marks the spot - and when that spot is a corpse's naked back and the X is carved in blood, DI Tom Thorne is in no doubt that the dead man is the latest victim of a particularly vicious killer. A BRUTAL VENDETTAThis is brutal turf warfare between north London gangs. Organised crime boss Billy Ryan is moving into someone else's patch, and that someone is not best pleased. A COP WHO IS PLAYING WITH FIREAnd when an X is carved on DI Tom Thorne's front door, he knows the smouldering embers of this case are about to erupt into flames...

The second book in the Tom Thorne series from bestselling author Mark Billingham, Scaredy Cat is a gripping, chilling tour-de-force; a book to keep you reading until deep into the night.'Assured and shocking' GuardianIt 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 . . .__________Read what everyone's saying about the heart-racing Tom Thorne series:'Literary superstar' Mail on Sunday'Ingenious' Guardian'Ground-breaking' Sunday Times'Mark Billingham gets better and better' Michael Connelly'A cracking read . . . I couldn't put it down!' Shari Lapena'A damn fine storyteller' Karin Slaughter'Twisted and twisty' Linwood Barclay'One of the most consistently entertaining, insightful crime writers working today' Gillian Flynn'The next superstar detective is already with us. Don't miss him' Lee Child

Winner of the Crime Novel of the Year, Lazybones is the third novel in the bestselling Tom Thorne series, a shocking, unputdownable novel from the master of psychological thrills.'Never loosens its grip on your throat' Daily MailIt'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.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...__________Read what everyone's saying about the heart-racing Tom Thorne series:'Literary superstar' Mail on Sunday'Ingenious' Guardian'Ground-breaking' Sunday Times'Mark Billingham gets better and better' Michael Connelly'A cracking read . . . I couldn't put it down!' Shari Lapena'A damn fine storyteller' Karin Slaughter'Twisted and twisty' Linwood Barclay'One of the most consistently entertaining, insightful crime writers working today' Gillian Flynn'The next superstar detective is already with us. Don't miss him' Lee Child

A MISSING BOYTeenager 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 VIDEOThen 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 TIMEDI 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...

When Donna Langford receives a very recent photo of her ex-husband in the post, she gets the shock of her life. Because she's just spent ten years in prison for organising his murder. When her daughter goes missing, Donna believes there can only be one man responsible and hires Anna Carpenter, a determined young private investigator, to find him.DI Tom Thorne worked on the Alan Langford case, so when Carpenter brings the photo to him, he refuses to believe that the man whose body was found in a burned-out car ten years before can still be alive. But when a prison inmate that he and Anna interview is viciously murdered, Thorne starts to understand that Langford is not only alive, but ready to get rid of anyone who could threaten his comfortable new life in Spain...

Discover the second of the two masterful hit novels adapted for the massive new BBC One Drama series In The Dark, featuring brilliant heroine Helen Weeks - continuing from number one bestseller Time of Death.'Billingham produces an astonishing final twist'Sunday TelegraphA rainy night in London. Shots are fired into a car which swerves on to the pavement, ploughing into a bus stop. It seems that a chilling gang initiation has cost an innocent victim their life. But the reality is far more sinister...One life is wiped out and three more are changed forever: the young man whose finger was on the trigger; an ageing gangster planning a deadly revenge, and the pregnant woman who struggles desperately to uncover the truth. Two weeks away from giving birth, how will she deal with a world where death is an occupational hazard?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.The hugely acclaimed latest novel in Mark Billingham's bestselling series, Love Like Blood, is out now.

'Expertly crafted, with a slam-dunk ending. The Dying Hours is a terrific read' GuardianA 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.Unable to trust anyone, Thorne must risk losing those closest to him. He must gamble with the lives of those targeted by a killer unlike any he has hunted before. A man with nothing to lose and a growing list of victims. A man with the power to make people take their own lives.Tom Thorne returns in Billingham's most compelling thriller to date - The Dying Hours is a haunting portrait of London's dark heart, and the darker heart of a twisted killer bringing terror to its streets.'One of the great series of British crime fiction' The Times'Billingham is a world-class writer' Karin Slaughter_____________________The outstanding new Tom Thorne thriller, THEIR LITTLE SECRET, is available to pre-order now

THE MESSAGEDI Tom Thorne has seen plenty of dead bodies in his time. But when he starts receiving sick photos of murder victims on his mobile phone, he soon realises that the next body could be his.THE KILLERAnd even when the man who has been sending the photos is tracked down, the deadly threat remains, For some, the case is all but closed, but Thorne's nightmare is just beginning. THE TWISTBecause someone else is masterminding the death messages. The most vicious psychopath Thiorne has ever faced is able to manipulate others even behind bars, and time has only deepened the deadly grudge he has against the policeman who put him away...