In the 23 years since his superb debut Sleepyhead hit shelves, Birmingham-born storyteller Mark Billingham has become one of modern crime fiction’s greats, and his gritty, long-running ‘DI Tom Thorne’ series is on my shortlist of best British series of the century. Last year, he swerved, returning to his stand-up comic roots with the raucous The Last Dance, which introduced rat-loving, ballroom-dancing detective Declan Miller.
Fumbling foxtrots, irreverent humour, policing slapstick and serious are all on the menu again in The Wrong Hands, a wonderful sequel that may have readers laughing out loud in some passages and emotionally hooked in others. The cops in Blackpool think they finally have crime boss Wayne Cutler bang to rights, only for a sting operation to be upturned by a couple of local larrikins. When a young man turns up on Miller’s doorstep with a briefcase containing severed appendages, Miller realises he may finally have the upper hand to catch those behind the murder of his wife, dance partner, and fellow detective, Alex. Not that he trusts the official investigation. So, with heavy metal-loving Detective ‘Posh’ Xiu alongside a menagerie of pals, Miller tries to juggle investigations professional and private, hoping not to get dragged off life’s dancefloor, permanently.
Billingham expertly delivers another fantastic read, full of grin-inducing characters on both sides of the law. Here’s hoping for much more to come from DS Declan Miller.
Reviewed by Craig Sisterson
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Mark Billingham was born and brought up in Birmingham. Having worked for some years as an actor and more recently as a TV writer and stand-up comedian his first crime novel was published in 2001.
Sleepyhead was an instant bestseller in the UK. It has been sold widely throughout the world and was published in the USA in the summer of 2002.
Mark is also a regular contributor to radio and TV and is a member of the Fun Lovin’ Crime Writers, a combo of bestselling crime and thriller writers who performed at the Glastonbury Festival in 2019 and 2024.
An acclaimed television series based on his ‘Thorne’ novels was screened on Sky One in Autumn 2010, starring David Morrissey as Tom Thorne. A series based on the novels In The Dark and Time Of Death was screened on BBC1 in 2017.
Mark lives in London with his wife and two children. He is currently writing his next novel.
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