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Sleepyhead | 
 enlarge | Author: Mark Billingham
Publisher: Sphere
Category: Book
List Price: £6.99
Buy Used: £0.01
You Save: £6.98 (100%)
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Rating:  38 reviews
Sales Rank: 7518
Media: Paperback
Edition: New edition
Pages: 416
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.4
Dimensions (in): 6.8 x 4.3 x 1.3
ISBN: 0751531464
Dewey Decimal Number: 813
UPC: 000751531464
EAN: 9780751531466
ASIN: 0751531464
Publication Date: November 5, 2007
Availability: Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days
Shipping: International shipping available
Condition: Leans with some spine wear but generally good, clean copy.
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Amazon.co.uk Review
The art of inducing fear in a reader via the printed page is a speciality of only a few skilled craftsmen. Mark Billingham is such an author, and Sleepy Head is such a book. The blurb on the jacket warns that we are in for a disturbing experience and that is precisely what we get: "He doesn't want you alive. He doesn't want you dead. He wants you somewhere in between". The killer who Billingham's protagonist Tom Thorne is up against is a particularly creepy specimen: he has savagely killed three victims but his fourth, although alive, is perhaps not so fortunate. She has undergone a deliberately induced stroke and although all her senses are intact, she is totally unable to move or communicate. This hideous condition, called Locked-in Syndrome is, however, quite possibly the killer's first miscalculation ... or is it? Soon the dogged Thorne (given to distrusting his own abilities) is playing a cat-and-mouse game with a psychopathic killer. And the brilliant and sadistic killer is just as interested in leading Thorne a merry dance as he is in fulfilling his degraded obsessions. All characterisations here are spot-on, even the killer (although one wonders just how many more hyper-intelligent psychopaths readers will be prepared to take) while the British setting is handled with intelligence, the horrific set pieces with real élan: His head moved up, through the hole and into bright white light. He blinked quickly to adjust and opened his eyes. Thorne's last thought, before his body turned ice cold and began to shake quietly, was that he'd been right to be afraid... --Barry Forshaw
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| Customer Reviews: Read 33 more reviews...
 TURN THORNE INTO A TV SERIES PEOPLE!! September 5, 2008
H. Butler (Berkshire, England)
This was the novel that made me fall in love with Tom Thorne and Mark Billingham. What a debut! Fantasic, deep and dark. Highly recommended to everyone who can read...and if you can't, get the audio CD.
Refreshing, amusing, chilling and original January 18, 2008
Helen Simpson (Leeds, England)
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
Loved it!
Locked-In Syndrome...what a sinister and disabling thing to do to someone. Aren't we all slightly freaked by the idea of being so helpless we can only blink? The way Mark writes Alison's character conveys her frustration as well as the humour she manages to hang on to. I really liked his characters and having read Scaredy Cat (his second novel featuring Detective Thorne) before this one, I'm now looking forward to reading his others in the right order.
Good, Gritty Crime Writing October 3, 2007
J. Chippindale (England)
4 out of 8 found this review helpful
Mark Billingham was born Birmingham. He worked for some years as an actor and more recently as a TV writer and comedian. His first crime novel was published in 2001. Though still occasionally working as a stand-up comic, Mark now concentrates on writing the series of crime novels featuring London-based detective Tom Thorne. Mark lives in North London with his wife and two children.
Mark Billingham's novel is like a breath of fresh air, just good old regular crime. No helicopter gunships, no fine art that tells a secret, or scenes from the Vatican with people congregating to choose a new pope. There are so many books available at the moment that contain the above that a book with straightforward police detective work is as I said like a breath of fresh air. There is nothing wrong with the books that I have mentioned, believe me, I have read most of them. But they are now starting to wear a bit thin.
The books leading character is Detective Inspector Tom Thorne and is the first of a series containing Thorne. It is a rare occurrence for one young woman to die of a stroke but when three of them do surely it is more than coincidence. When an on the ball pathologist notices traces of a drug in the blood supply of one of the victim's, the cause of death is changed to murder. So begins this book which is a down and out crime novel and a very good one too.
 You won't be all that sleepy... August 26, 2007
tiwwa (South Africa)
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
DI Tom Thorne is placed on a case involving the death of 3 women... Then something happens... A woman survives. But Thorne figures out that the killer doesn't want his victims dead, he wants them alive but paralyzed in a condition called Locked-In--Syndrome. Unable to speak or move the victim is now the killer's masterpiece, the others accidentally dead.
I think Mark Billingham taps into the dark corners of your mind and locks you into this novel; making you all the more terrified each night. Tom Thorne takes you into the world of policing, through corruption and his own lunacy at some points; while also romancing a doctor in her prime.
The thoughts of the victim become a breath of fresh air between chapters, black comedy and sarcasm mixed in with the tragic life of a woman locked in her own body. Thorne may start pissing you off every now and then but that's hardly worth not reading this book.
Thrills you until the very, very unexpected last few chapters where the whole novel comes together in a way you'll never guess.
 Pretty Good July 18, 2007
J.Flood (Dublin,Ireland)
2 out of 4 found this review helpful
A madman is on the loose. He is attacking women by manipulating pressure points on their neck, causing what is called 'locked-in' syndrome, whereby, they are aware of what is going on, but cannot move or communicate.
This is a pretty good novel. The main character, DI Tom Thorne, is fairly believable, as are the other characters, in the book. The storyline is fairly well paced, and should keep you interested, throughout.
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