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As a journalist, one of the biggest sins would be to reveal the intricate plot twists an author has strived so hard to create.
The first section of Mark Billingham's latest thriller, In The Dark, concludes with such an unexpected revelation that even the author himself almost gives the game away as he chats enthusiastically about the novel. "I want those moments to be surprising but it's difficult when you're reviewing or talking about crime novels," he admits when we meet in his north London home. "People talk about ratcheting up tension in crime novels and I just read a brilliant new book by a friend of mine, George Pelecanos, and he does that by making people care about the characters. That's the way to do it; you don't need pointless cliffhangers or tricks. Just write around the characters and the reader will go along with it."
In The Dark is the former actor's first stand-alone work after seven bestselling novels featuring north London Murder Squad Detective Inspector Tom Thorne, beginning with Sleepyhead in 2002.
Billingham, who still performs occasionally as a stand-up comedian, has since produced a novel a year and recently found time to co-write a children's adventure trilogy, Triskellion, with his friend Peter Cocks, under the pseudonym Will Peterson. "I'm a big fan of series crime fiction and I used to read it all the time before I started writing it," he says. "I was happy writing it but there are some series that are past their sell-by dates.
The writers I admire, who maintain a good level of quality through a series, often do so by taking a break. They'll go away, do something else, look at it from another angle and then they will come back all fired up again. If you ignore that voice in your head, then a year down the line you'll start hearing it from readers, critics and other writers. I knew it was time to do something else."
The novel provides an ideal introduction to Billingham for readers who have not religiously followed Thorne's adventures. "I am genuinely excited about it and scared as well," he says. "It was quite scary writing it because I was no longer in my comfort zone. I hope people who haven't read the Thorne books can read it and enjoy it as a stand-alone thriller and there is stuff in there for readers who have read the series as my guy makes a small appearance."
In The Dark is not so much self-contained but more an expansion of Billingham's fictional universe, which can be explored further in future novels. "I like how people like Michael Connelly create their own world where various fictional characters can interrelate over a series of books," he says. "A major character can become a minor character in another. I like creating that entire world and I like how the characters in this book can run into Tom Thorne."
The plot centres around a drive-by shooting by a teenage gang and although the scenario is distinctly different, Billingham draws comparisons with the spate of youth murders, particularly stabbings, that have plagued the English capital over the past two years. "It's frightening. I finished the book a year ago and it was in the news then.
I remember thinking that by the time this book comes out hopefully it won't be topical any more. Six kids died in a day last week; you can't not write about this. But I'm not tub-thumping at all; this is not an issues book. It's a thriller. It starts and finishes with the story and if an issue or two is raised along the way, then fine. But that's not what I set out to do. I started out with this story about how one random piece of violence can change everybody's life." Billingham had his work cut out for him when writing from the viewpoint of his heavily pregnant main character, Helen Weeks. "I've researched all sorts of stuff for these books, including medical matters.
The book I am writing now is about brain tumours, changes in personality, facial scarring and how the homeless live in London. But to try and get inside the head of a woman who is two weeks away from giving birth was really difficult.
Unless you are physically going through it, there are things you forget, like the pain of your ligaments stretching or leaking breasts. I had a friend who was due in a fortnight so she was able to provide some of the more gruesome elements."
Next up for Billingham is another Tom Thorne instalment, although he hopes to pen another stand-alone tale immediately after that. "I will maybe alternate them from now on. There are characters in this book, one character in particular, I might revisit."
In the Dark (Little, Brown $38.99)
Edited by Linda Herrick
