Book Summary and Reviews of The Shadow Step by Mark Billingham

The Shadow Step by Mark Billingham

The Shadow Step

A Detective Miller Novel

by Mark Billingham

  • Publishes:
  • Jul 21, 2026, 416 pages
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About this book

Book Summary

Detective Miller is back and investigating his most perplexing case yet.

The Shadow Step: One taken simultaneously by a pair of dancers facing the same direction, one of them behind and slightly shifted leftwards ("in the shadow").

A perfectly executed shadow step demonstrates synchronized elegance. It showcases a couple in near telepathic harmony with one another. It does not normally end with someone stone-dead in a lake.

DS Declan Miller is a magnet for strange cases, but an innocent man confessing to the crime? That's a first. Things rapidly escalate when the murder that isn't really a murder attracts the unwanted attention of a drug Queenpin, a deranged ex-squaddie, and a lovesick gangland enforcer. And when a real murder follows – and a student is kidnapped – all evidence points back to the same innocent man.

Throw in a wobbly dog, a pair of ceramic leopards, and the distracting smell from a biscuit factory, and Miller's only option to save a young man's life is to waltz all the way into the shadows.

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Reviews

Media Reviews

"Combining humor, pathos, and genuine surprise, it's another home run from Billingham." —Publishers Weekly (starred review)

"This is one rambling and wildly funny tale ... Not spiraling out of control, by any means, this is as carefully plotted as expected from Billingham." —Booklist

This information about The Shadow Step was first featured in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.

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Author Information

Mark Billingham

Mark Billingham was born and brought up in Birmingham. Having worked for some years as an actor and more recently as a TV writer and stand-up comedian his first crime novel was published in 2001. Mark lives in North London with his wife and two children.

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