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Mark Timlin is a British author best known for his series of novels featuring Nick Sharman, a former Metropolitan Police officer who takes up the profession of private investigator in South London. The Sharman books are characterised by their noir tone and their fast action, and feature a high casualty rate among their characters; Sharman himself is frequently injured or even hospitalised in the course of the novels. The books formed the basis for the TV series Sharman, in which Nick Owen played the eponymous detective; Timlin made a cameo appearance in the pilot episode [1].
Before commencing his writing career Timlin worked in a variety of jobs including a roadie for rock groups including T Rex and The Who[1], running a Clapham Junction music venue[2], minicab driver[2], and proprietor of a skateboard company[3]. In 1985 he was unemployed and living in a friend's abandoned bus[4]. Turning to writing as a way out of living on benefits, he wrote his first novel, A Good Year For The Roses, which was published as a paperback original in 1988. The Sharman series is now in double figures; in early years Timlin published prolifically. Almost all of the Sharman books carry titles which are taken from songs.
For many years Timlin reviewed crime fiction for the Independent on Sunday newspaper.