Author Mark Billingham pictured at home in north London for the Daily Express (Image: Adam Gerrard \/ Daily Express)<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n Would Mark Billingham ever kill off his fictional detective Tom Thorne? It\u2019s a question that clearly keeps fans awake at night. But he chuckles when I suggest high cholesterol and heart disease would be far more likely culprits if the cop with the notoriously poor diet keeled over one day. \u201cThat\u2019s right, or a dodgy curry,\u201d he smiles.<\/p>\n We\u2019re discussing mortality because his sensational new novel, What The Night Brings, opens with the appalling deaths of four police officers, killed by poisoned doughnuts left on their squad car with the message, \u201cThanks for everything you do!\u201d<\/p>\n The uniforms are providing traffic control and support during the early-morning arrest of a suspected armed robber and it\u2019s pure luck Thorne doesn\u2019t snarf one himself. But is it a targeted assassination, or something even more sinister?<\/p>\n Either way, country music-loving cop Thorne, DI Nicola Tanner and police pathologist Phil Hendricks are soon drawn into one of their darkest investigations. No surprise then that Billingham\u2019s 19th Thorne thriller \u2013 and his milestone 25th book in 25 years \u2013 takes place against the emotive backdrop of growing public anger at policing.<\/p>\n It\u2019s something the author couldn\u2019t ignore following the horrifying murder of Sarah Everard<\/a>, 33, in March 2021 by a serving officer and subsequent revelations of bad apples in the ranks. \u201cSarah Everard was our George Floyd<\/a> moment in terms of attitudes to the police,\u201d explains the author, referencing the African-American\u2019s 2020 death while under arrest in Minneapolis, which sparked the Black Lives Matter movement. “I don\u2019t think you can write contemporary police procedurals, especially set in London, without addressing that.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m not writing polemics, but I can\u2019t ignore the fact there are enough officers on suspension<\/a> at the moment to police a small town. You hear facts like that and you read that the Met has been pronounced institutionally racist, misogynistic and homophobic in an official report. I\u2019m still trying to write a commercial crime novel, but that stuff is going on so I knew I wanted that to be front and centre of this book.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Feminist group Sisters Uncut protest outside Old Bailey during killer cop Wayne Couzens sentencing (Image: Getty)<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n \u201cDon\u2019t get me wrong, I have nothing but admiration and respect for good coppers who do an incredibly difficult job the likes of you and I could never do when you need them. They\u2019ve got to make massive life-or-death decisions in a fraction of a second. But the ones who abuse it, I\u2019ve nothing but scorn and hatred for them.\u201d<\/p>\n It was, Billingham admits, a book that made him \u201cangry\u201d to write. \u201cYou just think, \u2018My God, is this really what\u2019s happening?\u2019 And you just start to do a bit of research. Not a crazy amount of research, but enough to make me very worked up doing it,\u201d he continues.<\/p>\n \u201cAnd I\u2019ve only been this worked up once before, when I wrote Love Like Blood about honour killing in 2017. This time I was furious because it\u2019s just horrible, absolutely horrendous. As I was writing it, I was thinking, \u2018This could be a good book or a terrible book because I\u2019m getting a bit emotionally involved\u2019, but hopefully it\u2019s worked out.\u201d<\/p>\n In fact it\u2019s a great novel, assisted perhaps by the fact Billingham decided to take a break from Thorne after 2022\u2019s The Murder Book, kicking off his new Blackpool-set series featuring ballroom dancing cop Declan Miller (He\u2019s currently writing the third Miller book). \u201cI had an enormous amount of fun writing them, but I always knew it was just a break while I hit pause on the Thorne books,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n \u201cSome readers will always want another Thorne novel in the same way that they want another Reacher novel, or another Rebus novel, or another Roy Grace novel. But if you\u2019re feeling a little bit jaded about a character or a series, that will come out. You can sense it. So it felt like a good place to do it after The Murder Book because a lot of things got resolved.<\/p>\n “When I stopped doing Thorne for the first standalone, people went, \u2018No, we just want you to write Thorne\u2019, But you can\u2019t keep doing that \u2013 you\u2019ve got to stay fresh.\u201d<\/p>\n Billingham, 63, a former actor and stand-up comic who lives with his TV director wife Claire Winyard, and their two children in North London, exploded onto the scene in 2001 with Sleepyhead, followed by Scaredy Cat a year later. Both had killer hooks and launched him as one of the leading lights of the UK crime writing fraternity.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n David Morrissey as DI Tom Thorne in Sky adaptation of Billingham’s early books (Image: Courtesy Sky)<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n \u201cYou can\u2019t rely on having a brilliant hook every year. Don\u2019t get me wrong, you think of a great twist or a great hook, and that\u2019s a great day at the office,\u201d he says. \u201cBut it\u2019s got to be about the characters developing and creating a character readers want to spend time and engage with even after 25 years.\u201d<\/p>\n Which is what brings us to the proverbial elephant in the room \u2013 a \u201cdouble whammy of shocks\u201d so staggering Billingham has felt compelled to write a brief afterword appealing to readers to keep it to themselves and avoid posting any spoilers. Choosing his words carefully, he explains: \u201cOnce I had that opening \u2013 the uniforms being poisoned \u2013 I knew that what would emerge was that there was an arch manipulator protecting rapist officers, facilitating their crimes, then hiding evidence.<\/p>\n \u201cSo it starts to emerge it\u2019s got to be a senior officer and Thorne doesn\u2019t know who he can trust. So there\u2019s a big reveal at the end and then a shock \u2013 and then an extra shock a chapter later, which is why it\u2019s the first time I\u2019ve had to write a little note in the back asking readers to keep it to themselves.\u201d<\/p>\n Even for a veteran writer, it wasn\u2019t easy to turn things on their head quite so dramatically. \u201cAt the end of this book, I want readers to be shocked and saddened, but also to feel that\u2019s it\u2019s been a fulfilling read; that there\u2019s nothing that\u2019s going to leave them irritated or unsatisfied by,\u201d he continues. \u201cThat\u2019s the challenge we all have because when you\u2019re dealing with police issues and crime, there\u2019s very rarely a neat ending.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s not about tying up every loose end, because often \u2018justice\u2019 is a grey area and there\u2019s at least one example of that at the end of this book, in that not everyone gets what\u2019s coming to them.\u201d<\/p>\n He pauses: \u201cI\u2019d made this decision about who my villain was going to be. It was quite scary, but I was talking to a colleague, Luca Veste, and he said, \u2018You\u2019ve got to do it!\u2019 That gave me faith. But I was worried about what readers would think \u2013 I\u2019m still worried.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Billingham is marking his 25th year of writing bestsellers with a new book, What The Night Brings (Image: Adam Gerrard \/ Daily Express)<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n How does Billingham feel now?\u00a0\u201cAsk me again in a fortnight when the book\u2019s out,\u201d he sighs. Having been involved in the Theakston Old Peculier Crime Writing Festival since day one, Billingham remains on the organising committee. Now in its 21st year, he will be a special guest in Harrogate next month, interviewed by programming chair Mick Herron.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s one of the highlights of the year for every crime writer,\u201d he enthuses. \u201cWe\u2019ve got an amazing line up of authors and events and panels.\u201d<\/p>\n The guitar player will also be \u201cmurdering songs for fun\u201d with his fellow Fun Lovin\u2019 Crime Writers, author-rock stars Val McDermid, Chris Brookmyre, Doug Johnstone, Stuart Neville and Veste, making their return with a Saturday night show. Billingham is, he admits, not a planner when it comes to writing. Neither does he subscribe to the idea that the characters inhabit his head and talk to him.<\/p>\n \u201cI mean I\u2019m the one doing the typing, it\u2019s all coming out of my head,\u201d he chuckles. \u201cBut the advantage of not planning too much out is that you can just be walking the dog and go, \u2018Oh I know, what about\u2026?\u2019 With Rabbit Hole, my most recent standalone, the twist at the end didn\u2019t come to me until after I\u2019d delivered the book.<\/p>\n “Then I thought, \u2018Oh, hang on a minute\u2019, and I quickly called my editor and asked for it back!\u201d The first two Thorne books were adapted by Sky back in 2010 starring David Morrissey as Thorne. While well-received by fans and critics, changes at the channel meant the series was dropped. Fans are ever hopeful of a TV reboot. Billingham sighs: \u201cIt\u2019s always there in the background but you\u2019ve just got to get on with things.<\/p>\n \u201cBut I\u2019d love to see it rebooted in the way they\u2019ve just done with [Ian Rankin\u2019s] Rebus, which I think worked really well. I\u2019m never going to say no to anything, but I\u2019m not holding my breath about any of those things.\u201d<\/p>\n Did Billingham ever think he\u2019d enjoy a 25-year-and-counting career from his books?<\/p>\n \u201cYou can\u2019t really think that far ahead, because you\u2019ve got a deal that\u2019s usually for two books. And even then, you know that if they don\u2019t do alright, that\u2019s probably all you\u2019re going to get. So the thought I\u2019d still be writing, let alone writing about Tom Thorne, never occurred to me.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Billingham, centre, with the Fun Lovin’ Crime Writers group of rock star authors (Image: Courtesy Fun Lovin’ Crime Writers)<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n \u201cEven though I\u2019ve never got a specific ending in mind, I know how I want the reader to feel at the end of it. I know the taste I want to leave in the reader\u2019s mouth.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIt feels like I\u2019ve been doing it for about five minutes, but I know I\u2019ve been doing it a long time when I look at all those books on the shelf. \u201cAnd then I\u2019ll read Michael Connelly\u2019s 40th book or Val McDermid\u2019s 40th or Ian Rankin\u2019s 30th and remember that there are actually plenty of people who\u2019ve been doing it for even longer.\u201d<\/p>\n What\u2019s the secret of keeping the quality up then?\u00a0\u201cI wish I knew. You\u2019ve just got to write the sort of book you\u2019d like to read,\u201d says Billingham. \u201cYou\u2019ve got to have that ambition. I\u2019m a reader first and foremost, and I write as a reader, or with an invisible reader looking over my shoulder.<\/p>\n Would he ever walk away from it all? \u201cI don\u2019t know what the cut-off point is or when it will arrive. It takes a lot to do what Lee Child did and simply walk away. That\u2019s incredibly brave and principled.<\/p>\n \u201cPersonally, I think that I\u2019ve still got something to say and compelling stories to write and as long as I feel like that and readers want me to keep going, that\u2019s exactly what I\u2019m going to do.<\/p>\n \u201cSo, I\u2019ve got no immediate plans to end it but, having said that, the next Thorne book will be the 20th, and that\u2019s a nice round number\u2026\u201d He tails off. 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