Mark Billingham has twice won the Theakston's Old Peculier Award for Crime Novel of the Year, and has also won a Sherlock Award for the Best Detective created by a British writer. Each of the novels featuring Detective Inspector Tom Thorne has been a Sunday Times bestseller. Sleepyhead and Scaredy Cat were made into a hit TV series on Sky 1 starring David Morrissey as Thorne, and a series based on the novels In the Dark and Time of Death was broadcast on BBC1. Mark lives in north London with his wife and two children.

TOM THORNE IS BACK . . . AND SO IS HIS WORST NIGHTMAREA gripping, grisly read. Mark Billingham is a terrific crime writer' ----- ANTHONY HOROWITZTom Thorne has it all.In Nicola Tanner and Phil Hendricks, Thorne has good friends by his side. He finally has a love life worth a damn and is happy in the job to which he has devoted his life...He has everything to lose.Hunting the woman responsible for a series of grisly murders, Thorne has no way of knowing that he will be plunged into a nightmare from which he may never wake.And he'll do anything to keep it.Finally, Thorne's past has caught up with him and a ruinous secret is about to be revealed. If he wants to save himself and his friends, he must do the unthinkable.PRAISE FOR MARK BILLINGHAM'Mark Billingham is a master of psychology'Ian Rankin'Fast-paced and twisting'Paula Hawkins'At the very least it should reach the shortlist of this year's Booker prize'The Times