Their Little Secret by Mark Billiingham: a review

Ah, finally I’m bringing you a review that isn’t on a class book. There are still a few left, four as far as I’m aware, but I’m trying to listen to audiobooks as I work so I can bring you some more regular content. I’m also adding content/trigger warnings to reviews where I feel that it’s needed. It’s something that I’ve considered for a little while, and I think it took reading a crime novel to make me go, you know what? It’s about time I add them in.

Content/trigger warnings: sexual content, suicide, murder, violence, abuse

Their Little Secret by Mark Billingham is a novel in his Tom Thorne series. Following what appears to be nothing more than a suicide, DI Thorne ends up in a world of lies, manipulation, and murder. What would you do to keep your little secret?

            No spoilers here because this is a crime novel, and ruining any of the twists and turns would be incredibly rude. So, any time I do talk about plot points, I’ll keep it vague.

            The opening is brilliant; you’re immediately brought into the action, and you get a great insight into Thorne’s character. I wasn’t aware that this is part of a larger series when I first picked it up. I just remember having seen it advertised in train a fair bit when I was travelling to and from uni around the time of this book’s release. I had an Audible credit, and thought I’d pick it up. Then, in my usual fashion I kept putting off actually reading it. Back to the point, I wasn’t aware that this was part of a series, but that wasn’t particularly important. I could read this and not feel like I was missing out on too many details. There was something alluded to with Thorne, his police partner, Tanner, and Hendrix, his friend and pathologist. I can only assume this event is a key detail from one of Billingham’s other Thorne novels.

            I was really pleased to get a wee bit of gay rep with the forementioned Tanner and Hendrix. I’m not saying this is going to be the next big thing in queer fiction, however the rep is genuinely enjoyable, and it’s nice to see queer people who are out of their twenties being shown in the media. Billingham gave us genuinely realistic depictions of queer people, and I loved seeing it. Also, despite him being a side character, I developed and incredible soft spot for Hendrix. I think he’s wonderful, and often provides some much-needed light relief.

            Billingham is also the narrator of the audiobook, and does an incredible job. He’s got real variety in his tone of voice. He’s got the range of many of the actual audiobook narrators that I have come across. Perhaps that comes with knowing the text so well. He has the best knowledge of how it’s supposed to sound.

            There’s a moment between the two antagonists where a huge revelation happens, and I was floored. I was out on a walk, that line about the toys came up, and I was just shocked. I had to stop what I was doing, step off the path, and take a moment to gather myself. It was a twist done well, as there are small signs that this could be the case, but unless you’re looking for those signs, you’re not going to spot them.

            Billingham is truly a master of writing characters. From such small snippets, you get their personalities to a T. One of the best examples of this is with Caroline. She’s not seen often enough to need to know her full story, but you get to know her personality so well. Everything she does makes you roll your eyes. She’s that middle-class mum who thinks she’s the master of all things parenting, and she always has to know more and be better than everyone else. Were I not at work while listening to the scene where the group of parents is being interviewed, I would have rolled my eyes so hard I’d be left with empty sockets. I was just surprised I never heard her utter the phrase “yummy mummy”.

            This novel has the effect that all really great crime novels have where you feel like, when you first start reading, you’ve been given a jigsaw puzzle with no real idea what the end picture is, and as you go through, all the pieces start fitting together. The picture becomes more clear and you feel like you’re achieving something by putting these pieces together. I mean, yes, the clues are usually a little clearer than we like to think, but you get to feel clever as you go through. I love those moments where you go “OH!” because something is beginning to connect and become more clear.

My final thoughts are that I absolutely adored this book. Everything tied together so nicely. Mark Billingham is certainly an author who I’ll return to at some point. I’d certainly like to know more about what happened with Thorne, Tanner, and Hendrix. I can only assume that this is something covered in a previous novel. Though, as much as anything, I just want to see more of Hendrix. If you’re into crime fiction at all, certainly pop this one on your reading list.