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{{infoboxinfobox1
|title=Sleepyhead
|author=Mark Billingham
|buy=No
|borrow=Yes
|pages=416
|publisher=Time Warner Paperbacks
|date=31 Jul July 2002
|isbn=0751531464
|amazonukcover=<amazonuk>0751531464</amazonuk>|amazonusaznuk=0751531464|aznus=<amazonus>0751531464</amazonus>
}}
''Sleepyhead'' is a serial-killer novel, set in the contemporary London and featuring DI Tom Thorne as the main character. It was Mark Billingham's debut as a crime writer and was received very well. I have enjoyed the novel, but I think that it had a lot of faults of the typical debut - I have now read the other instalments of the series and there are better ones out there, my favourite being [[''Scaredy Cat]] '' (this was one that really scared me and it's not an easy feat for a pop-book!).
Thorne is one of your typical fictional detectives: a hardened but sensitive copper, pig headed, stubborn and generally very good at what he's doing and rather bad at getting on with his superiors and some of his peers. He reminds me of Rankin's Rebus which is not necessarily a bad thing but doesn't make Thorne a particularly original invention. He's divorced; listens to country music and an occasional trance piece, likes his beer and wine but doesn't smoke or drink spirits. In a post-modernist way he's rather aware of the fact that he is a typical crime-novel figure but seems happy enough with it. Thorne has a sidekick in the person of Dave Holland, a young policeman torn between following a safe course of career and doing something worthwhile. The best friend is a gay Mancunian pathologist called Hendricks - one of the best creations of the book overall.
Overall, I enjoyed reading ''Sleepyhead''; mostly because of the unusual way the murders were committed and because of the good use Billingham made of the character of Alison. The leading characters (Thorne, Holland & Hendricks) worked OK, but the first two were perhaps bit too formulaic for my liking.
The problems I had related mostly to a stumbling writing style, especially in the sections written from Thorne's perspective; the construction of the novel could also be improved by removal of some of the scenes. Despite its faults it was certainly a promising debut and I have to say that the next instalment of DI Thorne's story [[''Scaredy Cat]] '' was significantly improved. [[Mark Billingham's D I Tom Thorne Novels in Chronological Order]]
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