The Librarians' Q&A: with crime fiction author Mark Billingham

July 24th 2025

Like you, our librarians love to get the latest on upcoming new books, as well as dive into the minds of our favourite authors. Introducing The Librarians' Q&A, our regular news feature where librarians ask the questions!

Bestselling author Mark Billingham reflects on 25 years of writing crime novels, shares insight into his journey and tells us more about What the Night Brings – his darkest Tom Thorne novel yet.

We last caught up with you just before publication of ‘The Last Dance’. What brought you back to Tom Thorne in What the Night Brings?

Well, going back to Thorne was always the plan. I wanted to get the new series featuring Declan Miller off the ground, which meant writing two Miller books back to back. Those books –The Last Dance and The Wrong Hands – were enormous fun to write, and I’m certainly not done with Miller, but Thorne was always lurking around in my head. He was always knocking at the door…

We’ve heard this book contains some ‘huge revelations’ – what can readers expect from this novel?

Well, I’m sure you don’t expect me to tell you what those huge revelations are, but I will confirm they are there. Those aside, it’s definitely the darkest Thorne book I’ve written to date. I think I’m writing about the police differently these days, but it’s almost impossible not to in the wake of the Sarah Everard murder and other horrific cases.

This book tackles those issues head on and as Thorne tries to find out why police officers are being targeted, he unearths secrets so shocking that they make him question everything he believes in or stands for as a copper.

What are your reading habits? Do they change when you’re writing? 

When I’m deep into a book, I probably don’t read quite as much crime fiction as I might otherwise. I don’t want to read fifty pages of a brilliant crime novel before I go to sleep then wake up thinking I’ve had a brilliant idea. So, perhaps there’s a bit more non-fiction than there might be otherwise. And there’s almost always a book about the Beatles on the go.

This year marks 25 years of your writing – what would you say to the younger you?

I’d probably advise myself to make my protagonist a little younger. I made him the same age as myself when I wrote the first book which was, in retrospect, a mistake. But I’ve managed to slow up the ageing process, for him at least.

I’d also tell him not to panic about every book. They will always get written and (hopefully) the ideas won’t run out.

Are there any other authors who have particularly inspired you? Or people who inspired you to write?

Oh, so many. From those writers I read when I was younger – Conan-Doyle, Hammett and Chandler – to those who I read while I was trying to become a writer and who I’m now lucky enough to now call friends – Ian Rankin, John Harvey, Val McDermid, George Pelecanos, Michael Connelly.

I continue to be inspired by any writer who is raising the bar. If that happens to be a debut writer mind you, it can be very annoying.

You have narrated some of your books (which is an important way into reading them for some people); how do you find that process? Can you give us some behind the scenes on how the decision on who narrates them is made? 

I was never supposed to narrate the books. It happened by accident because of a clash of dates and a reader being unavailable at the last minute. These days I only narrate the Thorne books (the Miller books are narrated by the brilliant David Threlfall) but I enjoy it enormously.

It’s much more tiring than you might expect it to be and I always turn up to the studio having forgotten that I’ve given characters all manner of bizarre accents. Some of them can turn out to be a…challenge. I can only apologise to the Scottish, Welsh and Irish readers I may have offended while attempting their accents.

What was your relationship with libraries growing up? Do you think public libraries are important?

Simply put, I would not be a writer without libraries. I would not be a writer were I not a reader and it’s libraries that made me a reader. The weekly trip with my Mum to my local library in Kings Heath, Birmingham was an enormous treat. That two-thirds of community libraries in my home city are currently threatened with closure is nothing short of disgraceful.

If you are not one of those lucky enough to grow up in a house filled with books (and I wasn’t), your local library is a vital resource. To take away the joy and the possibility of reading from thousands of young people is an act not just of cultural but of social vandalism and it must be fought tooth and nail. It’s not just about the books.

Over your writing career you’ve regularly stepped away from Tom Thorne to explore other stories, locations and genres. Do you know what’s next? 

I’m currently writing the third book in the Declan Miller series and, beyond that, I genuinely don’t know right now. It will either be a standalone thriller or the twentieth Tom Thorne novel, but I haven’t decided yet. 

What have you read recently, or what would you like to read next?

I’ve just finished Ian Rankin’s 25^th Rebus novel, which was predictably fantastic, and the brilliant – if somewhat grim – The Peepshow by Kate Summerscale; an investigation into the Rillington Place murders.

What I would like to read next, is the second volume of Mark Lewisohn’s definitive biography of the Beatles, but I know that if I ask him when it’s likely to appear, he’ll shout at me.

What the Night Brings by Mark Billingham As Tom Thorne and Nicola Tanner dig into the reasons for the violence, a deeper darkness begins to emerge: the possibility that these murders are payback. The price paid for an unspeakable betrayal. To uncover the truth, Thorne will be forced to question everything he stands for. He can trust nobody, and the shocking secrets revealed by one terrible night will fracture his entire world. DISCOVER

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