I grew up in Darlington, studied Russian and German at Cambridge and now live in London. I directed for film, TV and radio, including the award winning Numberjacks for Cbeebies, before becoming a full-time author. I was commended in the National Poetry Competition in 2005 and won the Telegraph’s ‘First thousand words of a novel’ competition in 2007 with the opening of Instruments of Darkness, my first novel. I’ve been shortlisted for the CWA Historical Dagger three times.