A. K. Benedict read English at Cambridge and Creative Writing at the University of Sussex. Her debut novel, The Beauty of Murder, was shortlisted for an eDunnit Award and is in development for an eight-part television series. Her second novel, Jonathan Dark or the Evidence of Ghosts, and a tie-in novel for Doctor Who spin-off Class, have since followed. Her short stories have been published in anthologies including Best British Short Stories and Best British Horror. Before becoming a writer in 2012, A. K. Benedict was an indie-rock singer/songwriter and composer for film and television, with music played on BBC 1, Channel Four, Sky, XFM, BBC Radio 1 and Radio 3 and in award-winning films. She now sings with The Slice Girls, a group of female thriller writers singing songs of sex, death and crime. She is currently writing scripts, short stories, a stand-alone psychological thriller and the sequel to The Beauty of Murder. She lives in Rochester on Sea with writer Guy Adams and their dog, Dame Margaret Rutherford. Visit www.akbenedict.com for more.
Bill Beverly lives in Maryland and teaches at Trinity University in Washington, DC. He is the author of On The Lam (2003), a study of the criminal fugitive figure in 1930s and 1940s American fiction and film, and also of Dodgers: A Novel (2016), winner of the Crime Writers’ Association (CWA) Gold Dagger, a Los Angeles Times Book Prize, a British Book Award, and the Mark Twain American Voice in Literature Award. A new novel, a cousin to Dodgers, is due in late 2019.
Ken Bruen is the author of thirty-eight books, twelve of which have been made into films, with a television series on Swedish Noir aired on Sky Atlantic. He served a prison term in South America and received a Doctorate in Metaphysics. His new series is ready to launch. He says: “The best profile of me own self was where top journalists described me a benign thug.” He has one daughter who has Down syndrome, and works in a school as a reading tutor.
Lee Child has more than a dozen number-one bestsellers under his belt. Forbes calls the Jack Reacher series, “The Strongest Brand in Publishing”; not bad for a guy out of work and on the dole when he first conceived of being a writer. The fictional Reacher is a kind-hearted soul who allows Lee Child lots of spare time for reading, listening to music, Aston Villa and the Yankees. Lee was born in England but now lives in New York City. Visit Lee online at LeeChild.com for more information about the novels, short stories, music, and movies Jack Reacher and Jack Reacher: Never Go Back. Lee can also be found on Facebook: LeeChildOfficial, Twitter: LeeChildReacher and YouTube: leechildjackreacher.
Jeffery Deaver is an international number-one bestselling author. His novels have appeared on bestseller lists around the world. His books are sold in 150 countries and translated into twenty-five languages. His is currently the president of the Mystery Writers of America. The author of forty novels, three collections of short stories and a non-fiction law book, and a lyricist of a country-western album, he’s received or been shortlisted for dozens of awards. His The Bodies Left Behind was named Novel of the Year by the International Thriller Writers association, and his Lincoln Rhyme thriller, The Broken Window, and a stand-alone, Edge, were also nominated for that prize. The Garden of Beasts won the CWA Steel Dagger and he’s been nominated for eight Edgar Awards. Deaver has been honoured with the Lifetime Achievement Award by the Bouchercon World Mystery Convention, the Strand Magazine’s Lifetime Achievement Award and the Raymond Chandler Lifetime Achievement Award in Italy. His book A Maiden’s Grave was made into an HBO movie starring James Garner and Marlee Matlin, and his novel The Bone Collector was a feature release from Universal Pictures, starring Denzel Washington and Angelina Jolie. Lifetime aired an adaptation of his The Devil’s Teardrop.
Stella Duffy has written sixteen novels, seventy short stories, including many for BBC Radio 4, and fourteen plays. She has twice won the CWA Short Story Dagger. Stella has also worked in theatre for over thirty-five years as an actor, director and writer, and is the co-founder and co-director of the Fun Palaces campaign for cultural democracy. She was awarded the OBE for Services to the Arts in the Queen’s Birthday honours 2016.
R. J. Ellory has authored fifteen novels for Orion UK and is translated into twenty-six languages. He has won the Livre De Poche Award, the Strand Magazine Novel of the Year, the Mystery Booksellers of America Award, the Inaugural Nouvel Observateur Prize, the Quebec Laureat, the Prix Du Roman Noir, the Plume d’Or 2016, the Theakston’s Crime Novel of the Year, the St. Maur and Villeneuve Readers’ Prizes, the Balai d’Or 2016, and the Grand Prix des Lecteurs. He has received a further eleven award nominations, including five from the CWA, two Barrys, the 813 Trophy, and the Européen Du Point. He is the guitarist and vocalist of The Whiskey Poets, and they have recently completed their third album, Native Strangers. His musical compositions for Universal Records have been featured in films and television programmes in more than forty countries. He has two television series and a film adaptation in pre-production.
Christopher Fowler is the multi-award-winning London-born author of fifty books, including twelve volumes of short stories, and the Bryant & May mysteries. His novels include Roofworld, Spanky, Psychoville, Calabash and two volumes of memoirs, Paperboy and Film Freak. He won the Green Carnation Award for Paperboy and the CWA Dagger in the Library for his Bryant & May mysteries. His collection Red Gloves, twenty-five stories of unease, marked his first twenty-five years of writing. He has written comedy and drama for BBC radio and the national press, graphic novels, the play Celebrity and the War Of The Worlds video game for Paramount. His short story ‘The Master Builder’ became the movie Through the Eyes of a Killer, starring Tippi Hedren. Among his other awards are the Edge Hill prize 2008 for Old Devil Moon, the Last Laugh prize 2009 for The Victoria Vanishes and again in 2015 for The Burning Man. His most recent non-fiction work is The Book of Forgotten Authors and his latest novel, Hall of Mirrors, is his fiftieth book. He lives in London and Barcelona.
James Grady’s first novel Six Days of the Condor became the Robert Redford movie Three Days of the Condor. Grady has received Italy’s Raymond Chandler Medal, France’s Grand Prix Du Roman Noir and Japan’s Baka-Misu literature award, two Regardie’s magazine short story awards, and been a Mystery Writers of America Edgar finalist. He’s published more than a dozen novels and three times that many short stories, been a muckraker journalist and a scriptwriter for film and television. In 2008, London’s Daily Telegraph named Grady as one of “50 crime writers to read before you die”. In 2015, The Washington Post compared his prose to that of George Orwell and Bob Dylan.
Born in Marseille, France, and with a degree in Political Science, Johana Gustawsson has worked as a journalist for the French and Spanish press and television. Her critically acclaimed Roy & Castells series, including Block 46, Keeper and, soon to be published, Blood Song, has won the Plume d’Argent, Balai de la découverte, Balai d’Or and Prix Marseillais du Polar awards, and is now published in nineteen countries. A television adaptation is currently underway in a French, Swedish and UK co-production. Johana lives in London with her Swedish husband and their three sons.
John Harvey was born in London, where he now lives, while considering Nottingham his spiritual home. Poet, dramatist and sometime publisher, he is best known as a writer of crime fiction, the first of his twelve-volume Charlie Resnick series, Lonely Hearts, having been selected by The Times as one of the 100 Best Crime Novels of the Century. The first of his Frank Elder novels, Flesh & Blood, won the CWA Silver Dagger in 2004, and his story ‘Fedora’ won the CWA Short Story Dagger in 2014. In 2007, he was awarded the CWA Cartier Diamond Dagger for sustained excellence in the crime genre. He has been awarded honorary doctorates by the Universities of Nottingham and Hertfordshire.
Lauren Henderson was born in London and worked as a journalist for newspapers and music magazines before moving to Tuscany to write books and party; after a ten-year stint in Manhattan, she returned to London. Lauren has been described as both the Dorothy Parker and the Betty Boop of the British crime novel. She writes for many UK-based publications, including Grazia and Cosmopolitan, and several national newspapers. Together with Stella Duffy, she edited the anthology Tart Noir, a groundbreaking collection of twenty short crime stories by leading female crime writers. Lauren has written seven novels in her Sam Jones mystery series, which has been optioned for American television, three romantic comedies, the non-fiction Jane Austen’s Guide to Dating and two YA mystery series. As Rebecca Chance, she writes Sunday Times bestselling sexy thrillers.
Her interests include watching Bravo shows with fellow crime writer reality TV fans while drinking cocktails. Her books have been translated into over twenty languages.
Mary Hoffman has written 120 books, mainly for children and teenagers, including the much praised Stravaganza series but also two adult novels under pseudonyms and several short stories. Her books have been translated into more than thirty languages. She is a passionate Italophile and many of her books are set in that country. Sadly, Mary has no home there but lives in a converted barn in Oxfordshire, which is also pretty nice. She runs the History Girls blog and is on the management committee of the Society of Authors.
Maxim Jakubowski worked for many years in book publishing alongside his career in writing, editing and translating. He is the author of twenty novels, the last being The Louisiana Republic (2018), and five collections of short stories. He also opened the UK’s first mystery bookstore, Murder One, which ran for over twenty years. He has edited a number of major cult imprints and well over 100 anthologies and is a regular broadcaster and contributor to national newspapers and magazines. A past winner of the Karel and Anthony awards, he was also co-director of London’s International Film and Literary Mystery Festival, Crime Scene, at the National Film Theatre for ten years. A vice-chair of the Crime Writers’ Association, he lives in London.
Denise Mina is a Scottish crime writer and playwright. She has written the Garnethill trilogy and another three novels featuring the character Patricia “Paddy” Meehan, a Glasgow journalist, in addition to six other mystery novels with a strong social background, and true crime narrative The Long Drop. Described as an author of Tartan Noir, she has also dabbled in comic book writing, having written thirteen issues of Hellblazer. She is two-time winner of a CWA Dagger and her work has been adapted for television.
Jason Starr is the international bestselling author of many crime novels, psychological thrillers and comics. His novels include Twisted City, Tough Luck, Hard Feelings, The Follower, Panic Attack, and Fugitive Red (published in the UK as Too Far). Additionally, he’s the author of the acclaimed Pack series of urban fantasy novels. His work in comics for Marvel and DC includes Batman, The Punisher, and the entire Wolverine Max series. He has also co-written several novels with Ken Bruen for Hard Case Crime, and is the writer of the official Gotham novels, based on the hit FOX series. Several of Starr’s novels are in development for film, television and theatre. He has won the Anthony Award twice, as well as the Barry Award. He lives in New York City.
Lavie Tidhar is the author of the Jerwood Fiction Uncovered Prize winning and Premio Roma nominee A Man Lies Dreaming, the World Fantasy Award winning Osama and of the Campbell Award winning and Locus and Clarke Award nominated Central Station. His latest novels are Unholy Land and first children’s novel Candy. He is the author of many other novels, novellas and short stories.
Cathi Unsworth is the author of six highly acclaimed pop-cultural crime novels, That Old Black Magic, Without The Moon, Weirdo, Bad Penny Blues, The Singer and The Not Knowing, all published by Serpent’s Tail. She began her writing career at the age of nineteen on Sounds and has since worked as an editor on Bizarre and Purr. She has written on music, film, pop culture and general weirdness for Fortean Times, Financial Times, The Guardian, Mojo, Sight & Sound and Uncut, among others. Her latest book is the co-authored autobiography of the first woman of punk, Defying Gravity: Jordan’s Story (Omnibus Press). Find more at www.cathiunsworth.co.uk