Morse, Rebus, and now Mark Billingham's Thorne. The next superstar detective is already with us - don't miss him.’

Lee Child

Thorne on TV

The Thorne books are presently in development for television by the BBC, which is an exciting and scary business for the writer. As things stand, each reader has a different vision of Tom Thorne, but the moment the actor portraying him walks into that first scene, with millions of viewers watching, all bets are off. There’s a very real danger he can become fixed in people’s minds, rather in the way that John Thaw is Inspector Morse, however much he might differ from the character in Colin Dexter’s books. And who knows what picture of Thorne will be in my head, the next time I sit down to write about him? We’ll have to wait and see. The actor I want for Thorne has declared that he is keen, so things are looking interesting.