Mark Timlin (born 15 June 1944, in Cheltenham) 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 Clive Owen played the eponymous detective; Timlin made a cameo appearance in the pilot episode.