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Press Release

Mark Billingham's Death Message wins the Theakstons Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year Award27/07/2009

Mark Billingham’s novel Death Message (Sphere) has beat strong competition this weekend to scoop the Theakstons Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year Award, announced on the opening night of the 2009 Theakstons Old Peculier Crime Writing Festival. 

Mark is repeating his success from 2005 when he won the very first award with LazyBones. He is a prolific and extremely popular writer, with his newest Tom Thorne novel Bloodline out on August 6th.

Mark Billingham today said ‘To even be on the shortlist with such fantastic authors was amazing and then to win was absolutely amazing!’

Sharon Canavar, Chief Executive of Harrogate International Festivals said of Mark’s win: ‘The Award is a fantastic opening to the best crime writing festival around, and I am delighted that Mark won, I remember thoroughly enjoying Death Message when I first read it. A very worthy winner.’

Open to British crime novels published in paperback in 2008, this is the only award of its kind to be voted for by the general public and this year over 5000 votes were cast online, representing the reading tastes of the nation.

The winning book will also have a prominent chart position in most Asda stores though the summer.

The full short list was as follows:
The Accident Man, Tom Cain (Corgi)
Bad Luck and Trouble, Lee Child (Bantam)
Death Message, Mark Billingham (Sphere)
Gone to Ground, John Harvey (Arrow)
Ritual, Mo Hayder (Bantam)
Garden of Evil, David Hewson (Pan)
A Cure for all Diseases, Reginald Hill (HarperCollins)
The Colour of Blood, Declan Hughes (John Murray)
Dead Man’s Footsteps, Peter James (Pan)
Broken Skin, Stuart MacBride (HarperCollins)
Beneath the Bleeding, Val McDermid (HarperCollins)
Exit Music, Ian Rankin (Orion)
Friend of the Devil, Peter Robinson (Hodder & Stoughton)
Savage Moon, Chris Simms (Orion)

Death Message
The first message that Tom Thorne receives on his mobile is poorly defined, shot from close up and low down, and it wasn’t until he held the phone eighteen inches away for a few seconds that he realised he was staring at a murder victim.  The number, when called, rings to a dead line.  Later that week he receives a second message; another photograph, another murder.  The second victim has been suffocated as he lay in hospital. 

Thorne’s investigations lead him to a murderous prisoner that he’d personally put away years ago, and an inmate who has come under his influence.  Now Thorne must face one of the toughest challenges of his career, knowing that there is no killer more dangerous than one who has nothing left to lose.

Coming Soon from Mark Billingham… Bloodline
Bloodline sees the return of D.I. Tom Thorne.  The body of a woman is found in a North London flat; a bloodstained sliver of X-ray clutched in her fist.  Thorne discovers that the victim’s mother had herself been murdered fifteen years before by infamous serial killer Raymond Garvey. The hunt to catch Garvey was one of the biggest in the history of the Met, and ended with seven women dead. 

More bodies and more fragments of X-ray are discovered, leaving a macabre jigsaw to be pieced together, until the horrifying picture finally emerges and it becomes clear that Thorne is dealing with one of the most twisted killers he has ever hunted…