Mark Billingham

Time Warner Paperbacks 2002, £5.99, 423 pages

ISBN: 0751531464

Rating: ***

”He doesnt want you alive, he doesnt want you dead, he wants you somewhere in between.” Alison Willetts lies in a hospital bed, aware of everything going on around her but completely unable to communicate or control anything except her eyes. The latest victim of a ruthless killer, she has survived a deliberately inflicted brainstem infarct, which has left her suffering from the so called locked-in syndrome. The killer is good looking and sophisticated, irresistible to the women he targets. Having plied them with drug-spiked champagne, he begins to massage their necks, focusing on one artery.

Detective Inspector Tom Thorne believes that Alison is the killers first mistake; his first three victims have ended up dead. But Thorne soon discovers the frightening truth: this mans aim is to put these women at the mercy of the machines that now maintain Alisons life, to give them “perfect freedom” from the constraints of their bodies. Death to him is merely “an acceptable margin of error.”

Following his realisation about Alisons attacker, Thorne becomes completely convinced that anaesthetist Jeremy Bishop is the killer and will stop at nothing to prove him guilty. But its no coincidence that Bishop once had an affair with Anne Coburn—Alisons doctor and Thornes new lover. Thornes blind pursuit rapidly becomes an obsession and borders on the downright irritating.

Sleepyhead is Mark Billinghams first novel and our introduction to Detective Inspector Thorne. Billingham is better known as a standup comedian and set out to write the sort of crime book he would read—as far removed as possible from his normal world. One similarity he has noted between comedy and crime is the use of the technique referred to as “reveal”—the moment it becomes clear that you have been led down one path and the punchline is coming rushing up the other. It seems that Billingham is trying to milk this technique too far in his attempts to mislead the reader.

Despite this, Billingham is definitely a talent to watch out for in the future. Sleepyhead is a completely gripping, if downright scary, novel—just dont read it late at night, in the house on your own.