Quotes About Mark Billingham

The day a character becomes predictable is the day a writer should think about moving on - because the reader certainly will.

I think readers' imaginations are far more powerful than anything you can put on a page and, therefore, can conjure up graphic images for themselves, which I think you just have to nudge them towards.

More than 100 years after he first appeared, Holmes remains the template for the fictional detective.

I think there's as much violence, in a way, as a scene with two women having a cup of coffee in a Ruth Rendell novel - in terms of emotional violence and the violence you can inflict with language - as there is in the most graphic kind of serial killer/slasher novel you can think of.

When you think of a great twist or a red herring or a way of misdirecting the reader, it is good, but you know that they are just tricks at the end of the day, and the way to keep interest is to write characters that people care about.

All you can hope for when you get a book adapted for TV is that you get a good actor and not some muppet off 'EastEnders.'