Mark Billingham shares his favourite books

The actor and crime writer will be talking about his latest novel, “What the Night Brings”, at the Theakston Old Peculier Crime Writing Festival in Harrogate (17-20 July).

The Beatles: All These Years – Vol. One, Tune In

Mark Lewisohn, 2013

The first volume in a trilogy that promises to be the definitive biography of The Beatles. Meticulously researched, it provides an eye-opening portrait of postwar Britain; buttoned-up and grey and more than ready for John, Paul, George and Ringo to bring some life and colour.

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The Book of Lost Things

John Connolly, 2006

This is a funny, terrifying and deeply moving story about a boy who escapes a traumatic existence by losing himself inside the books on his shelf, by an author best known as a writer of dark crime fiction. It’s a remarkable story about childhood and, ultimately, the transforming power of stories themselves.

Sharp Objects

Gillian Flynn, 2006

When Camille Preaker is forced to revisit her own horrific past, she uncovers enough disturbing secrets to rattle even the most battle-hardened of crime readers. This is “Peyton Place” as reimagined by David Lynch, with a devastating final twist, and I read it with something approaching envy that a debut novel could be so good.

The Big Blowdown

George P. Pelecanos, 1996

This tale of Washington’s immigrant community from the early 1930s through to 1959 has an epic sweep. Young men take hard decisions in a city which goes to war and then struggles to recover from it. Gripping and heartbreaking in equal measure.

The Death of Sweet Mister

Daniel Woodrell, 2001

Shug Akins is a lonely overweight 13-year-old, living in a dirt-poor Missouri town. A slice of southern gothic with a bittersweet taste that will stay with readers long after they’ve finished its 200 pages. A gorgeous and terrible story of innocence corrupted, by a writer who deserves a far bigger readership.