Martin Edwards was born in Knutsford, Cheshire. He read law at Balliol College, Oxford and trained as a solicitor. He is the author of the legal mysteries featuring Harry Devlin adnd writes the popular crime series set in the Lake District. He is also a critic and has edited various short story collections and writes The Martin Edward's Column on BookNoir.

Abir Mukherjee grew up in the west of Scotland. At the age of fifteen, his best friend made him read Gorky Park and he’s been a fan of crime fiction ever since.

The child of immigrants from India, A Rising Man, his debut novel, was inspired by a desire to learn more about a crucial period in Anglo-Indian history that seems to have been almost forgotten.

It won the Harvill Secker/Daily Telegraph crime writing competition and became the first in a series starring Captain Sam Wyndham and ‘Surrender-not’ Banerjee. Abir lives in London with his wife and two sons.

Aline Templeton lives in Edinburgh with her husband and their Dalmatian dog.

She has been Chair of the Society of Authors in Scotland and has been made the first Crime Writer's Association's Bookseller's Champion.

Andrew Taylor (b. 1951) is a British author of mysteries. Born in East Anglia, he attended university at Cambridge before getting an MA in library sciences from University College London. His first novel, Caroline Miniscule (1982), a modern-day treasure hunt starring history student William Dougal, began an eight-book series and won Taylor wide critical acclaim.

He has written several other thriller series, most notably the eight Lydmouthbooks, which begin with An Air That Kills (1994). His other novels include The Office of the Dead (2000) and The American Boy (2003), both of which won the Crime Writers’ Association of Britain’s Ellis Peters Historical Dagger award, making Taylor the only author to receive the prize twice.

His Roth trilogy, which has been published in omnibus form as Requiem for an Angel (2002), was adapted by the UK’s ITV for its television show Fallen Angel. Taylor’s most recent novel is the historical thriller The Scent of Death (2013).

Ann Cleeves is the author behind ITV's Vera and BBC One's Shetland. She has written over twenty-five novels, and is the creator of detectives Vera Stanhope and Jimmy Perez - characters loved both on screen and in print. Her books have now sold millions of copies worldwide.

Ann worked as a probation officer, bird observatory cook and auxiliary coastguard before she started writing. She is a member of 'Murder Squad', working with other British northern writers to promote crime fiction. In 2006 Ann was awarded the Duncan Lawrie Dagger (CWA Gold Dagger) for Best Crime Novel, for Raven Black, the first book in her Shetland series.

Some of her other novels include the popular Vera Stanhope series, The Crow Trap, Telling Tales, Hidden Depths, Silent Voices, The Glass Room, Harbour Street and The Moth Catcher. In 2012 she was inducted into the CWA Crime Thriller Awards Hall of Fame. Ann lives in North Tyneside.

Catherine Aird is the author of more than twenty crime novels and short story collections, most of which feature DCI Sloan. She holds an honorary MA from the University of Kent and has been awarded an MBE. She lives near Canterbury.

Christopher Fowler is the creative director of a film promotion company and lives in London.

He is the author of the novels Roofworld, Rune, Red Bride, Darkest Day, Spanky, Psychoville and Disturbia and of the short story collections City Jitters, The Bureau of Lost Souls, Sharper Knives and Flesh Wounds.

David Stuart Davies is one of Britain's leading Sherlockian writers. He was editor of Sherlock Holmes The Detective Magazine, authored several Holmes novels, hit play Sherlock Holmes: The Last Act, Titan's Starring Sherlock Holmes and a biography of Jeremy Brett. He is advisor to the Sherlock Holmes museum, and contributed commentaries to DVDs of the Basil Rathbone Holmes films.

Winner of the 2016 CWA Dagger in Library. Elly Griffiths was born in London. She worked in publishing before becoming a full-time writer. Her bestselling series of Dr Ruth Galloway novels, featuring a forensic archaeologist, are set in Norfolk.

The series has won the CWA Dagger in the Library, and has been shortlisted three times for the Theakston's Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year. Her Stephens and Mephisto series is based in 1950s Brighton. She lives near Brighton with her husband, an archaeologist, and their two children.

John Harvey was born in London, where he now lives, while considering Nottingham his spiritual home. Initially a teacher of English & Drama, he has been a full-time writer for more than forty years. The first of his 12 volume Charlie Resnick series, Lonely Hearts was selected by The Times as one of the '100 Best Crime Novels of the Century' and the first Frank Elder novel, Flesh & Blood, won the CWA Silver Dagger in 2004. He was awarded the CWA Cartier Diamond Dagger for sustained excellence in the crime genre in 2007, and his story, 'Fedora' won the CWA Short Story Dagger in 2014.

In addition to writing fiction, he has written and published poetry, running Slow Dancer Press for over twenty years; his New & Selected Poems, Out of Silence was published in 2014. He has adapted the work of Arnold Bennett, A. S. Byatt, Graham Greene and others for radio and television, and in 2017, his dramatisation of the final Resnick novel, Darkness, Darkness, was produced at Nottingham Playhouse. He has been awarded honorary doctorates by the universities of Hertfordshire and Nottingham.

Bestselling author of Eats, Shoots and Leaves and Talk to the Hand, Lynne Truss is a journalist, arts and book reviewer, sports columnist and a regular broadcaster for BBC's Radio 4. She's had two plays performed at the Edinburgh Festival, including 'Hell's Bells' in 2012. Her latest book is Get Her Off The Pitch: How Sports Took Over My Life. Nine Lives is her fourth novel, and the first in over ten years.

Michael Jecks gave up a career in the computer industry to concentrate on writing and the study of medieval history.

A regular speaker at library and literary events, he is a past Chairman of the Crime Writers' Association.

He lives with his wife, children, and dogs in northern Dartmoor.

Michael Ridpath spent eight years as a bond trader in the City before giving up his job to write full-time.

He lives in North London with his wife and three children.

Simon Brett worked as a producer in radio and television before taking up writing full-time. He was awarded an OBE in the 2016 New Year's Honours 'for services to literature' and also was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. In 2014 he won the CWA's prestigious Diamond Dagger for an outstanding body of work.

Martin Edwards is an award-winning crime novelist whose Lake District Mysteries have been optioned by ITV. Elected to the Detection Club in 2008, he became the first Archivist of the Club, and is also Archivist of the Crime Writers’ Association. In addition to 17 crime novels, he has published eight non-fiction books and is a noted commentator on the genre. Renowned as the leading expert on the history of Golden Age detective fiction, he won the Crimefest Mastermind Quiz three times, and possesses one of Britain’s finest collections of Golden Age novels, including unique inscribed books and manuscripts, notably the previously unknown handwritten study made by Dorothy L. Sayers of the case of Constance Kent and Inspector Whicher.