Earlier today we featured two series for which season DVDs are being released this week.
But we missed one — Thorne.
In 2010, the first two "Tom Thorne" mysteries by Mark Billingham were adapted for 3-part (each) made-for-television movies on Sky1 in the UK. Encore picked up the rights in the US — airing it in June 2012 — and this week the DVD featuring both titles is being released.
We're providing information about both the DVD and the books from which the movies were adapted below. However, the books, which have been long out of print in the US, are not yet available to purchase but may be pre-ordered; they will be re-isssued this July by Grove Press.
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Thorne
Sleepyhead / Scaredy Cat
David Morrissey stars as Detective Inspector Tom Thorne, a brilliant but haunted investigator for whom nothing is ever by the book, in adaptations of the first two mysteries in a series by crime novelist Mark Billingham.
In Sleepyhead, Thorne's only key to a catching a serial killer is a survivor unable to move or communicate.
In Scaredy Cat Thorne hunts a psychopath who may have formed a depraved partnership.
Through it all he will clash with colleagues take shocking risks and battle the personal demons that could destroy his world forever.
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Sleepyhead
Mark Billingham
A Tom Thorne Mystery (1st)
His first three victims ended up dead. His fourth was not so fortunate …
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 and is aware of everything going on around her, but is completely unable to move or communicate. Her condition is called Locked-In Syndrome. In leaving Alison Willetts alive, the police believe the killer made his first mistake.
Then D.I. Tom Thorne discovers the horrifying truth; 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. For the killer is smart, and he's getting his kicks out of toying with Thorne as much as he is pursuing his sick fantasy. Thorne knows immediately he's not going to catch the killer with simple procedure. But with little more than gut instinct and circumstantial evidence to damn his chief suspect, anesthetist Jeremy Bishop, his pursuit of him is soon bordering on the unprofessional. Especially considering his involvement with Anne Coburn, Alison's doctor and Jeremy's close friend.
Thorne 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 speak …
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Scaredy Cat
Mark Billingham
A Tom Thorne Mystery (2nd)
Now, killing is a team sport.
It was a vicious, calculated murder. The killer selected his victim at London's Euston station, followed her home on the tube, strangled her to death in front of her child. At the same time, killed in the same way, a second body is discovered at the back of King's Cross station. It is a grisly coincidence that eerily echoes the murder of two other women, stabbed to death months before on the same day.
It is DI Tom Thorne who sees the link and comes to a horrifying conclusion. This is not a serial killer that the police are up against. This is two of them. Finding the body used to be the worst part of the job, but not any more. Now each time a body is found, Thorne must live with the knowledge that somewhere out there is a second victim, waiting to be discovered. But whilst the methods might be the same, the manner of the killings is strikingly different. Thorne comes to realise that he is hunting two very different killers. One is ruthless and in control, while his partner in crime is submissive, compliant, terrified.
Thorne must catch a man whose need to manipulate is as great as his need to kill, a man who will threaten those closest to Thorne himself, a man, who will show him that the ability to inspire terror, is the deadliest weapon of all …
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