Sleepyhead
- Authors: Mark Billingham
- Series: Book 1 in the Tom Thorne series
- Type: Novel
- Genres: Mystery
- Rank:
- Rating: 4 based on 6,514 reviews
- Release Date: July 1, 2002
- Print length: 320 pages (Hardcover)
About the book
It's rare for a young woman to die from a stroke and when three such deaths occur in short order it starts to look like an epidemic. Then a sharp pathologist notices traces of benzodiazepine in one of the victim's blood samples and just traceable damage to the ligaments in her neck, and their cause of death is changed from 'natural' to murder.
The police aren't making much progress in their hunt for the killer until he appears to make a mistake: Alison Willetts is found alive and D.I. Tom Thorne believes the murderer has made a mistake, which ought to allow them to get on his tracks. But it was the others who were his mistakes: he doesn't want to take life, he just wants to put people into a state where they cannot move, cannot talk, cannot do anything but think.
When Thorne, helped by the neurologist looking after Alison, starts to realise what he is up against he knows the case is not going to be solved by normal methods - before he can find out who did it he has to understand why he's doing it.
Praise for Sleepyhead
Sleepyhead is one of the finest first-novels I've read in a long while. Mark Billingham has brought a rare and welcome blend of humanity, dimension, and excitement to the genre and earned an instant seat at the top table of crime novelists. An exceptional debut.
With Sleepyhead, Billingham leaps to the upper echelons of British crime fiction in a single bound.
The best thriller debut of the year.A new twist to the twisted mind of a psychopath.an exciting debut novel.
After reading only the first few pages of Sleepyhead I had my first nightmare in years. I woke up in the early hours shaking and sweating...
Brilliantly conceived and superbly plotted, with complex characters, deft twists, and an ending that's both shocking and oppressive. A must-read.
An assured chiller. Disturbing and thrilling... with memorable characters and bundles of atmosphere. Britain now has its own forensic crime maestro.
There’s not much you can fault Sleepyhead on. Disturbingly original.
About the author
