Marele Day grew up in Sydney and graduated from Sydney University with BA (Hons). Her work experience ranges from fruit picking to academic teaching, and she is currently a freelance editor. She has travelled extensively and lived in Italy, France and Ireland. Travels include a voyage by yacht from Cairns to Singapore which resulted in near shipwreck in the Java Sea. The Life and Crimes of Harry Lavender was her first thriller, published by Allen & Unwin in 1988. This was followed in 1990 by The Case of the Chinese Boxes. The Last Tango of Dolores Delgado was first published in 1992 and won the 1993 Shamus Crime Fiction Award.