Or at least that's what Thorne's right hand man, Detective Constable Dave Holland's wife reckons, believing that Thorne represents "an unhealthy future for him in the force". Thorne is all about his job, an obsession that's left him with a reputation in the Metropolitan Police for being an awkward bastard and someone who it's best not to associate with too much if you want your career to go anywhere. And let's begin with the first book in the series, 2001's Sleepyhead, wherein we meet our hero, Tom Thorne, 41 years of age, three years divorced, childless, living alone in a one-bed flat in Kentish Town kitted out with furniture bought "one wretched Sunday at IKEA". Now that I've got that out the way, this week you can expect a couple of posts on the initial two Thorne novels and how they stack up against the, as we'll see, somewhat less successful Sky TV show they gave rise to (an approach inspired by a comment Book Glutton left on this post about Justified, and one I similarly employed for this post on Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy), along with some Brighton and Lewes Book Bargains. off, bear in mind it's probably because I haven't read a lot of novels in this particular category. So if my meandering ramblings on the Thorne books strike you as a little. In fact, sod the guessing games: just tell me a story from the killer's perspective (stand up, The Killer Inside Me). I'd rather read about the crims than the coppers – Parker, Ripley, Dortmunder – and as for guessing the identity of the killer, frankly, I couldn't care less. So, a caveat before we get stuck in: despite the crime fiction bent of this blog, I'm really not a fan of detective stories or whodunnits.
I'd been aware of the novels for some time (in a book I oversaw last year – 500 Essential Cult Books – we included Sleepyhead in the selection), but to be frank, they belonged to a subgenre I had little interest in, namely detective fiction.
As with most of the more contemporary fiction I read, I came to Billingham late in the game – earlier this year, to be exact, when I picked up first editions of the first two Thorne books at the Lewes Book Fair. And the theme this week, you lucky bleeders, is Mark Billingham, specifically his series of books starring Detective Inspector Tom Thorne. Welcome to another week of themed posts on Existential Ennui (better get used to the idea there's plenty more of these to come).
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