Book Review - Sleepyhead by Mark Billingham

I've not long finished the above mentioned book and although it's not a genre I often read, I did find it a very enjoyable read. The synopsis of the book is:
Alison Willetts is unlucky to be alive. She has survived a stroke, deliberately induced by a skilful manipulation of pressure points on the head and neck. She can see, hear and feel; she is aware of everything going on around her, but she is completely unable to move or communicate. It's called Locked-In Syndrome. In leaving Alison Willetts alive, the police believe the killer's made his first mistake.
Then DI Tom Thorne discovers the horrifying tuth: it isn't Alison who is the mistake, it's the three women already dead. 'An appropriate margin of error' is how their killer dismisses them, and Thorne knows they are unlikely to be the last. He must find a man whose agenda is terrifyingly unique, and Alison, the one person who holds the key to the killer's identity, is unable to tell anyone...

There are many crime fiction books out there with a main set of characters who appear in each book and I have found with these kinds of books, they can start to get a 'samey' feel about them. However, this is the first book I have read of Mark Billingham's, so I have yet to feel this about his books. I found his storytelling quite compelling. I liked how most of the book was centred around Tom Thorne and his investigation into the killings, but I aso liked how the occasional chapter was reserved for Alison or for the killer him/herself (I'm not going to give anything away!).
I think this book had a good 'creep' factor in what the killer was trying to achieve and it does almost make you feel that it could happen to you by placing other victims in similar scenario's that you could quite easily experience yourself.

This book and his second book, Scaredy Cat have been made into a new 6-part TV show which will be shown on Sky One from October. I have just started reading the second book tonight as I am going to 'An evening with...' the author in a couple of weeks and wanted to have read a couple of the books. I was impressed with this book as a first novel and you can see that a lot of research went into it.

I'm not sure I would recommend this book to my friends as I don't think it would be their type of genre, but I would definitely recommend it to my family members, who enjoy many other crime writers' work.

7 out of 10