Mark Billingham’s Cheery Christmas Message
Mark Billingham’s Cheery Christmas Message
Christmas is of course a time of peace, goodwill and socks to all men. But it’s also the time when a man’s mind turns to murder. All right then, this man. OK, so this man who happens to be a crime writer and enjoys thinking up creative ways to dispose of people. I refuse to believe, however, that I’m the only one out there contemplating seasonal homicide, not when there are so many prime candidates. I love Christmas. No, honestly, I do, but some people are just asking for it, aren’t they? Let’s start with anyone who puts a tree up before December or thinks that ‘Merry Christmas Everyone’ by Shakin’ Stevens is a better song than ‘Fairytale of New York’. Come on, you know I’m right.
These people are saints though, saints I tell you, compared with the real Christmas villains: the men and women who will be first up against the wall when I am swept to power on a tide of popular opinion. I’m talking, of course, about evil incarnate. I’m talking about . . . the scum-sucking, swivel-eyed monsters who send Christmas ROUND ROBINS!
Do these nut-jobs really believe that we cannot live through Christmas without detailed descriptions of every holiday they’ve been on that year? Can we not survive until the New Year without knowing just how many GCSEs little Josh has managed to scrape or how well their precious Tabitha has done at ballet lessons? These people deserve at the very least to be stuffed upside down into chimneys or have a fully decorated, non-dropping Norwegian spruce inserted into them!
All right . . . all right, perhaps I am being a tad harsh and it IS Christmas, after all. So instead of exacting bloody yuletide revenge, I will simply be sending out a round robin of my own, in the hope that the offenders may come to realise just how nauseating and pointless these things are.
‘Well, it’s been another eventful year in the Billingham household. Phew! I hardly know where to start, there’s SO much to tell you all! Mrs B has had a great 2013, having been moved out of solitary confinement and into a cell with nicely cushioned walls and where the furniture isn’t fixed to the floor. It’s a real show of faith, I think, and we’re all hopeful that she can get through January without taking a shiv to anyone on the wing. Temper, temper, dear! LOL! The kids have been busy too and we’re thrilled that Mark Jr has been nominated for the Nobel Prize at such a tender age. Fingers crossed for you, Junior! Our darling daughter got brilliant reviews in the Barnet Amateur Dramatic Society production of Cabaret: “Young Miss Billingham shone as Sally Bowles” (Barnet & Finchley Gazette) and has been handpicked to star opposite George Clooney and Brad Pitt in a major motion picture release for 2014. See, I told you it was a hell of a year! We all enjoyed a fabulous three weeks in the Maldives in the summer. We swam and lay in the sun and read books and stuff and some nights we were up until after ten o’clock! I’m telling you, we Billinghams know how to par-teee! So, what else to tell you?? Oh yes, both the dogs died, the cat had piles, there was an unfortunate incident involving the Dyson and the family hamster, and we haven’t seen Grandma since the house burned down. Gotta laugh, though, haven’t you . . . ?’
Have a great Christmas, but remember, a card will do. JUST a card . . .
Mark x
Tom Thorne returns in Billingham’s most compelling thriller to date, The Dying Hours: a haunting portrait of London’s dark heart, and the darker heart of a twisted killer bringing terror to its streets.
