Tick Tock: A Times Thriller of the Year

Product Information

The son of teachers, he cut his teeth on hospital radio and BBC Radio Nottingham, his ambition always to climb to the top at Radio 1. The breakfast show, landed in 1988, was a dream. McCabe, Gordon (9 February 2007). "Wittertainment". McCabism. Archived from the original on 20 March 2012 . Retrieved 4 June 2012.

Harvey, Chris (5 March 2021). "Simon Mayo interview: 'We all get told our time is up, but not always with respect and decency' ". The Telegraph. ISSN 0307-1235 . Retrieved 24 August 2022. Plunkett, John (15 September 2009). "Simon Mayo confirmed as Chris Evans's successor on BBC Radio 2". The Guardian. London. Archived from the original on 12 February 2014 . Retrieved 15 September 2009. Starting in 1999 he was the original presenter of National Lottery game show Winning Lines on BBC1 until 2000 when he was replaced by Phillip Schofield in 2001. He was the announcer for the concert celebrating Queen Elizabeth II's Diamond Jubilee on 4 June 2012. In 2005 he presented a series The Big Dig on BBC TV about allotments in the Rhondda Valley contrasted with others in Highgate, London. [30]The appeal for me was that it was mainly based on UK home soil, with only a few brief communications with Lilly's foreign counterparts. The emphasis on the Salisbury Russian poisoning episode being woven into the narrative was classic Deighton, Fleming et al. Ah yes, but I didn’t want to write about a book about the pandemic we’ve all just lived through because I didn’t think people would want to read that,” he says. “I just wanted to write something effective.” Before you know it, it spreads. Elsewhere across the globe, it emerges, small outbreaks at first, contained groups of people, young and old, and suddenly it's a plague - and ten days later it's killing people. The hospitals are overflowing and there is no cure. There is a paranoid panic which sets friend against friend, neighbour against neighbour. Where does the world go from here? And it’s writing, he suggests, that gives him the kind of lasting satisfaction he doesn’t necessarily get elsewhere.

Kermode and Mayo's Film Review Friday 2 pm–4 pm, January 2010–May 2019; 3 pm–5 pm, May 2019–March 2020, August 2021–February 2022; 2:30 pm–4 pm, March 2020–August 2021, February 2022–April 2022 Hanks, Robert (6 January 2004). "Chris Moyles, The Radio 1 Breakfast Show". The Independent. London. Archived from the original on 7 August 2009 . Retrieved 23 February 2010. He takes a lead from his longtime broadcasting partner. “As Mark Kermode says,” he adds, “film critics don’t make any difference to the success or otherwise of a movie, and it’s the same with books. If a book critic in one of the big papers doesn’t like my book, it doesn’t make any difference. Word-of-mouth, book festivals – those are the kinds of things that matter.”

Select a format:

But their investigation throws up more questions than answers until they realise the mystery behind the illness is even bigger than they could have imagined... He says: “It was the biggest show in the country and what you played and didn’t play made a huge difference. It was an extraordinary privilege, it’s not really a proper job.” Sherwin, Adam (26 February 2019). "Simon Mayo: Why I had to quit Radio 2 for new classical station Scala". inews.co.uk . Retrieved 24 August 2022. Act Your Age, Series 1". BBC Radio 4 Extra. 2015. Archived from the original on 6 January 2016 . Retrieved 18 September 2015.

The characters may have been few, but they were well written. All of them were flawed, carrying burdens of one form or another. Turning collective terror into handy plotlines is something else that thriller writers tend to excel at. If you’re going to write a book about a new global pandemic with unusual, unheard of symptoms I highly recommend you don’t open with a scene where the virus is in full swing, and everyone is in the know – except the reader – who has no idea what is going on in what turned into a very long scene with people acting crazy with no explanation given. I shouldn’t have to read the synopsis for a book to make sense. My opinion – only a really short teaser scene would’ve worked here.This is the first book that I have read by the author, Simon Mayo, and it will definitely not be the last. I have to admit that I hadn't realised the guy had turned his hand to writing, so I will have to play catch-up on his previous work after this brilliant novel.