BEST-SELLING author Mark Billingham is hard at work in the quiet village of Great Rollright writing his next crime thriller - and the rural views from his cottage windows are far removed from the streets of London where his fictional detective hero, Tom Thorne, solves murder mysteries.

Mr Billingham, 45, bought the Great Rollright property two years ago as a country retreat for himself and his family - wife Claire, and children Katie, 11, and Jack, nine.

He said: "It is a nice bolt-hole; the perfect place to write. There is something about the place and I can get twice as much work done here as I can in London.

"All of my books so far have been based in the city, but perhaps I'll write something set in a village. The countryside can be fertile ground for murder stories."

Mr Billingham is writing his eighth book and has provisionally given it the name Death Message. It will be released in September.

Earlier this month, he was at Jaffe and Neale, Chipping Norton's new bookshop and coffee house, where his current novel Buried is on the shelves.

Mr Billingham is a former actor and stand-up comedian who started writing TV scripts before branching out into novels. He had roles in Crossroads, The Bill, Dempsey and Makepeace, and Maid Marian And Her Merry Men - the programme he wrote scripts for.

He said: "In The Bill I was either a burly crook or a burly copper, and it was those experiences that gave me a taste for crime writing."

His stand-up comedy appearances are infrequent nowadays, but he still performs occasionally at The Comedy Store.

His interest in writing goes back to his schooldays in Birmingham where he grew up and lived until he moved to London at the age of 25 to further his acting career.

He said: "I loved to write stories at school. And even more than writing, I loved it when the teacher asked me to stand in front of the class and read my work to the other pupils.

"I'm still fascinated by reading and writing."

Mr Billingham said he was 'horribly lucky' with his first novel.

He said many fine authors were unable to get work published at all, but he struck gold with his first attempt.

He said: "I never thought I could write a book, but we were on a family holiday and and I started jotting down ideas.

"After the holiday I wrote 30,000 words and sent them to an agent who offered them around and got four publishers interested."

"That first book was a big seller and the publishers wanted more.

"I agreed to write a book every year, and some people might think it would get easier, but it doesn't."

Mr Billingham said: "Writing gets harder with every book - and that's the the way it should be.

"I want each book to be better than the one before, and so do the publishers. Readers, too, have their expectations and there is pressure to produce the goods."

He said: "I have to be reasonably disciplined and work hard." Asked where his ideas came from, he said real-life situations could be transformed into storylines.

He said: "My book The Burning Girl came from an actual event in the playground at school when a girl was set on fire."

Mr Billingham said his wife and family were very supportive in his work.

He said: "Claire is a TV director, and she is always the first person to read what I write."

On why they chose Great Rollright as their country home, Mr Billingham said: "Claire spent months looking around and we always liked Chipping Norton. When the cottage in Great Rollright came up, we decided it was right for us.

"I like being part of a small community and I'm a big supporter of Chipping Norton Theatre and this bookshop. We try to get down here every weekend. I still think of Birmingham as home, but we love this area too.

"It's a bit inconvenient not having broadband, and the kids complain that we don't have Sky TV, but a satellite dish on an old cottage wouldn't look right.

"They have five terrestrial channels to watch, and I tell them that when I was their age I only had two."

Mr Billingham's novels could become a TV series. A production company has bought the rights and have approached the BBC about making a series. Actor David Morrissey is thought to be interested in playing the role of Tom Thorne.