Mark Billingham's Bloodline (July 2011) marks the eighth outing for his London detective Tom Thorne. Billingham, who has discussed the fact that Thorne is more than a mere doppelganger for himself—author and detective both live in London, have the same birthday, and more than a few favorite bands—has a love/hate relationship writing about this gumshoe. He talked to us about the joys, and pitfalls, of writing a series character.

I was always a fan of series characters. I loved Robicheaux, Resnick and Rebus (what is it with the letter R?). I devoured the adventures of Matt Scudder, Harry Bosch and Elvis Cole. So, when I sat down to write Sleepyhead, that first novel was always going to be number one in a series. I wanted Detective Inspector Tom Thorne to be a character with somewhere to go; a character who would grow and develop over a series of novels. To this end, I took one major decision. I decided that the reader would know as much about him at any one time as I did.

Stupid, right?


I decided that I would not do the sensible thing and compile a dossier of Thorne-related facts. There is no file that tells me where he went to school and what he has for breakfast. No notebook detailing the members of his family, the names of his friends or the places he has lived. In short, I have given myself nothing to refer back to.


Yes, very stupid.


I did this because I believed (and still believe) that the quickest way for a character to become boring and for a series to go stale, is for the hero to become predictable. For me, if I can peel away a new layer of the onion with each book then Thorne can genuinely stay surprising, but it needs to surprise me every bit as much as it does the reader. So, there is nothing there to help me. No Thorne ‘bible’ of facts to fall back on for information.


There are only the previous books in the series.


So, I have made mistakes. Many of them have been gleefully pointed out to me by those eagle-eyed readers with pin-sharp memories, who remember exactly where the mark on Thorne’s favourite jacket is, or the precise make and model of his car, or the day, month and year he acquired Elvis, his beloved and somewhat deranged cat.


Readers who may well know more about Tom Thorne than I do.


Each time I sit down to begin a new Thorne novel, I need to remind myself where Tom Thorne is in his life. I need to remember those things that have made him what he is. I cannot pretend the experiences I have put him through in previous stories have not happened. These are dark and painful events that have marked him, and not honoring that history would be to write little more than a cartoon. In ‘Tom and Jerry’, an anvil will occasionally fall on Tom and in the next frame his head will appear anvil-shaped. Then, in the very next frame, it has returned to normal. This is the way it goes with cartoons, but I want my characters – Thorne most of all – to be as human as possible. This means that the scars he carries – inside and out – will always be there. Of course, each novel must always be accessible to those readers who have not read previous books in the series, but I hope it will always be clear that Thorne has not just…emerged; some freshly-minted cartoon hero.


That he has lived a life.


That he is unpredictable and does not always do the right thing. That he may occasionally go into areas that some readers will find disturbing.

That he is anvil-shaped…


If I can breathe life into a character like this, one that keeps me and the reader interested, then a few continuity errors are a small price to pay.