Interview: Mark Billingham

In a January Magazine exclusive interview, contributing editor Ali Karim sits down with British crime fictionist Mark Billingham (In the Dark, Death Message) and asks why the author has decided to take a break from police procedurals, how he took to composing a standalone novel and how he constructs credible dialogue. Says Karim:

Mark Billingham is a very interesting writer. That’s true not only because he’s one of Britain’s most sought-after stand-up comedians (though his act can be somewhat R-rated in places) and has also worked as an actor, but because he launched right out of the gates with a strong and astonishing debut novel called Sleepyhead (2001). That book heralded the start of a major London-based police procedural series featuring Inspector Tom Thorne and his team of inner-city cops. There have since been half a dozen additional Thorne novels, the most recent being last year’s Death Message, which showed that text messaging can have a decidedly dark side.

The full interview is here.