Sleepyhead

Mark Billingham

What is it about British mystery authors cranking out excellent first novels? Nicci French, Mo Hayder, and Minette Walters have all waltzed down the pike in the last decade and taken the world by storm. Now you can add Mark Billingham to the list.

Billingham's first novel, Sleepyhead, is about a truly twisted individual, even more twisted than Hayder's birdman—this one's dead bodies are failed experiments. What he's really after, he gets in Alison Willetts, a girl who is mysteriously left at a hospital suffering from what is known as locked-in syndrome, a type of stroke that leaves the victim fully conscious, but paralyzed and unable to communicate. The police find an ever-growing string of bodies as the killer attempts to duplicate his handiwork.

Very well-paced for a book of its length, and very readable. Billingham knows where to put all the twists and turns. The characters are a little more wooden than one would expect, and a bit more predictable, but then mystery readers have been spoiled recently. (Odd, because Billingham has one of his characters remark early on that he doesn't fir the policeman-on-television stereotype; perhaps we're just used to that these days?) Still, this is a fast, fun read with some excellent twists.