It's rare for a young woman to die from a stroke and when three such deaths occur in short order it starts to look like an epidemic. Then a sharp pathologist notices traces of benzodiazepine in one of the victim's blood samples and just traceable damage to the ligaments in her neck, and their cause of death is changed from 'natural' to murder. The police aren't making much progress in their hunt for the killer until he appears to make a mistake: Alison Willetts is found alive and D.I. Tom Thorne believes the murderer has made a mistake, which ought to allow them to get on his tracks. But it was the others who were his mistakes: he doesn't want to take life, he just wants to put people into a state where they cannot move, cannot talk, cannot do anything but think. When Thorne, helped by the neurologist looking after Alison, starts to realise what he is up against he knows the case is not going to be solved by normal methods - before he can find out who did it he has to understand why he's doing it.

A stunning 20th anniversary paperback edition of the groundbreaking first Tom Thorne novel, a case that changed crime fiction forever . . .

Alison Willetts has survived a stroke, deliberately induced by a skilful manipulation of pressure points on the head and neck. She can see, hear and feel but she is completely unable to move or communicate. In leaving Alison Willetts alive, the police believe the killer's made his first mistake.

Then DI Tom Thorne discovers the horrifying truth: it isn't Alison who is the mistake, it's the three women already dead.

Thorne must find a killer whose agenda is disturbingly unique, and Alison, the one person who holds the key to the killer's identity, is unable to say anything . . .

'One of my favourite authors'
Harlan Coben

'A terrifically stylish debut novel'
Independent on Sunday

'The next superstar detective'
Lee Child



Autorentext

Mark Billingham has twice won the Theakston Old Peculier Award for Crime Novel of the Year, the Sherlock Award for the best detective created by a British writer and in 2026 he was awarded the Crime Writers' Association Diamond Dagger for an outstanding lifetime contribution to the genre. Sleepyhead and Scaredy Cat were made into a hit TV series on Sky 1 starring David Morrissey as Tom 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.

Titel
Sleepyhead
EAN
9780748109531
Format
E-Book (epub)
Digitaler Kopierschutz
Adobe-DRM
Dateigrösse
3.6 MB
Anzahl Seiten
432
Features
Unterstützte Lesegerätegruppen: PC/MAC/eReader/Tablet