Showing results by narrator "Mark Billingham" in All Categories

Every Monday evening six people gather in a smart North London house to talk about shame. A respected doctor, a well-heeled housewife, a young male prostitute...they could not be more different. All they have in common is a history of addiction. But when one of the group is murdered, it quickly becomes apparent that someone else in that circle is responsible. The investigation is hampered by the strict confidentiality that binds these individuals and their therapist together, which makes things difficult for Detective Inspector Nicola Tanner.

When DI Tom Thorne is called to conduct a routine assessment at the site of a suicide, he expects to be in and out in no time. But when he arrives at the metro station, where a woman named Philippa Goodwin threw herself in front of an underground train, Thorne inexplicably senses something awry and feels compelled to dig deeper. He soon discovers that she was the victim of a callous con-man who preys on vulnerable women, and whose deception plunged Philippa to her end. Thorne enlists DI Nicola Tanner to help him track down the swindler and bring him to justice.

In the summer of 1996, two boys run from a playground into the adjoining woods, but only one comes out. DS Tom Thorne takes on the case - which quickly spirals out of control when two people connected to the missing boy are murdered. As London prepares to host the European Soccer Championships, Thorne fights to keep on top of a baffling investigation while also dealing with the ugly fallout of his broken marriage....

Tom Thorne finally has it all. In Nicola Tanner and Phil Hendricks, Thorne has good friends by his side. His love life is newly reformed by a promising relationship and he is happy in the job he has devoted his life to. As he sets off hunting the woman responsible for a series of murders, Thorne has no way of knowing that he will be plunged into a nightmare from which he may never wake. A nightmare that has a name. Thorne's past threatens to catch up with him and a ruinous secret is about to be revealed. If he wants to save himself and his friends, he will have to do the unthinkable.

The customers in a London convenience store are taken captive. Among them is a young mother, Detective Helen Weeks. She is told her life depends on the co-operation of one of her colleagues - detective Tom Thorne. Akhtar is desperate to know what really happened to his beloved son, who died a year before in prison. He is convinced the death was not an accident and forces the one man who knows more about the case than any other, Thorne, to re-investigate.

In The Bones Beneath, the latest addition to the internationally best-selling Tom Thorne series, Thorne once again must confront Stuart Nicklin, a master manipulator and ruthless murderer. When Nicklin announces that he wishes to reveal the whereabouts of one of his earliest victims and that he wants the cop who caught him to be there when he does it, it becomes clear that Thorne's life is about to become seriously unpleasant. Thorne is forced to accompany Nicklin to a remote island off the Welsh coast which is cut off from the mainland in every sense.

While DI Nicola Tanner investigates the deadly spread of a dangerous new drug, Tom Thorne is handed a case that he doesn't take too seriously, until a spate of animal killings points to the work of a serial killer. When the two cases come together in a way that neither could have foreseen, both Thorne and Tanner must risk everything to catch two very different killers.

Billy is a highly decorated veteran, with a reputation for excellence, honesty and integrity not only supporting his comrades Ant Middleton, Jason Fox and Ollie Ollerton but equally intimidating and inspiring the contestants who take on the gruelling challenges each week. The Hard Way details Billy’s story thus far but will also educate and enthral those wishing to seek a challenge and conquer it - the SAS way.

When a dead body is found in a North London flat, it seems like a straightforward domestic murder until a bloodstained sliver of X-ray is found clutched in the dead woman's fist - and it quickly becomes clear that this case is anything but ordinary. DI Thorne discovers that the victim's mother had herself been murdered 15 years before by infamous serial killer Raymond Garvey. The hunt to catch Garvey was one of the biggest in the history of the Met and ended with seven women dead.

DI Nicola Tanner needs Tom Thorne's help. Her partner, Susan, has been brutally murdered, and Tanner is convinced that it was a case of mistaken identity - that she was the real target. The murderer's motive might have something to do with Tanner's recent work on a string of cold-case honor killings she believes to be related. Tanner is now on compassionate leave but insists on pursuing the case off the books and knows Thorne is just the man to jump into the fire with her.

Tom Thorne is on holiday with his girlfriend, DS Helen Weeks, when two girls are abducted in Helen's hometown. When a body is discovered and a man is arrested, Helen recognizes the suspect's wife as an old school friend and returns home for the first time in 25 years to lend her support. As his partner faces up to a past she has tried desperately to forget and a media storm engulfs the town, Thorne becomes convinced that despite overwhelming evidence of his guilt, the police have got the wrong man.

Newly demoted after stepping out of line once too often, and struggling to adjust, Detective Inspector Tom Thorne becomes convinced that a spate of suicides among the elderly in London is something more sinister. His concerns are dismissed by the murder squad he was once part of and he is forced to investigate alone. Now, unable to trust anybody, Thorne risks losing those closest to him as well as endangering those being targeted by a killer unlike any he has hunted before: a man with nothing to lose and a growing list of victims.

The Write Stuff is the book-based panel show that takes a witty and whimsical look at well-known authors and their work. Host James Walton challenges the erudite contestants with tricky literary teasers, which they endeavour to answer using a combination of knowledge and guesswork.

It 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....

It has been a decade since Alan Langford's charred remains were discovered in his burnt-out car. His wife, Donna, was found guilty of conspiracy to murder her husband and served 10 years in prison. But just before she is released, Donna receives a nasty shock: an anonymous letter containing a photo of her husband. The man she hates with every fibre of her being - the man she paid to have murdered - seems very much alive and well. How is it possible that her husband is still alive?

The Hostage. Police officer Helen Weeks walks into her local newsagent's on her way to work. Little does she know that this simple daily ritual will change her life forever. It's the last place she expects to be met with violence, but as she waits innocently at the till, she comes face to face with a gunman. The Demand. The crazed hostage-taker is desperate to know what really happened to his beloved son, who died a year before in youth custody.

A master of the psychological crime genre, Patricia Highsmith is most famous for her quintet of best-selling Ripley novels, and her groundbreaking thriller Strangers on a Train (notably adapted as a classic film by Alfred Hitchcock). This extensive collection encompasses her best-known works, as well as selected short stories and three programmes about the author herself and her greatest creation, charismatic anti-hero Tom Ripley.

As DI Nicola Tanner investigates what appears to be a series of organised killings, her partner, Susan, is brutally murdered, leaving the detective bereft - and vengeful. Taken off the case, Tanner enlists the help of DI Tom Thorne to pursue a pair of ruthless killers and the broker handing out the deadly contracts. As the killers target their latest victim, Thorne takes the biggest risk of his career and is drawn into a horrifying and disturbing world in which families will do anything to protect their honour.

DI 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. And 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.

Three 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? Tom 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 15-year-old atrocity. Those who know are keeping quiet. But the word on these streets is that the killer is a cop....